A phishing email has Sparkasse customers in its sights: The bank is said to be paying out the 300-euro energy bonus. That’s behind it.
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Sparkasse customers are repeatedly targeted by online scammers
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Consumer advocates are currently warning of a phishing e-mail that is aimed at customers of the savings banks and in which fraudsters are abusing a current event for their own purposes. The e-mail pretends to check the recipient’s entitlement to a government energy allowance. For this purpose, the users are supposed to disclose their personal data via a link contained in the e-mail and the Sparkasse then supposedly takes over the rest, including the payment of an energy bonus of 300 euros per employee. Of course, none of this is true and the users should give up
never enter your data.
Employer pays out a 300-euro energy flat rate, not the banks
It is true that the governing coalition passed a third relief package of 65 billion euros over the weekend due to the sharp rise in energy prices. Already with
the second relief package
Among other things, it was decided that all employees subject to income tax (from tax brackets I to V) would receive an energy allowance of 300 euros in September. This is paid out by the employer, so the banks have nothing to do with it.
With the third relief package, pensioners are now also to receive a one-time payment of 300 euros on December 1, 2022. For students and technical students there will be a one-off payment of 200 euros.
How to recognize the phishing email
The phishing emails have a subject such as “Get your energy flat rate now!”, “We’ll transfer the energy flat rate” or “Ready for your energy bonus?” In the text of the e-mail, in which the recipient is not personally addressed, but only with “Dear customer!” is addressed, it says, among other things:
“In order to mitigate the effects of the increased energy prices on consumers, a lump sum of 300 euros will be paid out to all employed persons in September. This is a decision by the federal government and is part of the 2022 relief package, which will cushion the explosion in energy costs caused by the Ukraine war target.”
The email then explains in more detail who is entitled to the energy flat rate. “In order to be able to determine your identity (sic!) and the right to a payment, we need confirmation of the data you have already provided when creating your current account in one of our branches,” reads the text in the e-mail. The recipient has a total of four weeks to do this. The customer can enter his data “on our homepage”. In addition to “Homepage”, other words in the mail are not spelled correctly, another indication that something cannot be right.
This is how you should respond to the email
The entire content of the email is fictitious by the online scammers. They want to get sensitive information from Sparkasse customers in order to then misuse it for other purposes. Anyone who receives such an email should simply ignore and delete it. Under no circumstances should the link contained in the emails be clicked.
