Tips for avoiding incidents of defrauding citizens issued by the General Police Directorate of Thessaloniki on the occasion of incidents of defrauding citizens by astute people who mainly approach elderly people and extort sums of money from them with various pretexts and tricks.

In particular, GATH recommends:

  1. • Do not be easily convinced by people who “approach” you as acquaintances of your relatives and friends.
  2. • Be especially wary of unknown persons who attempt to enter your home under various pretexts and tricks.
  3. • Be especially wary when strangers try to convince you to pay a sum of money, under the pretext of an emergency of your relative (eg hospitalization).
  4. • In cases where strangers invoke an emergency of a known relative, always seek to contact your known relative by phone to confirm what they claim. The communication should be done with your own phone and on your own initiative and you should not accept to speak with a person who was called by strangers.
  5. • In any case, state that you are not going to hand over money if your acquaintances-relatives do not show up.
  6. • Do not under any circumstances accept unknown persons to lead you to a Credit Shop or ATM to withdraw a sum of money.
  7. • Do not be easily convinced by opportunity purchases of products recommended to you by unknown persons, especially without first seeing these products.
  8. • Do not be persuaded by strangers who pose as employees of a Public Service or other body to fix a technical problem, if you have not previously called them.
  9. • Do not be convinced when strangers ask you to pay money for debts of acquaintances or relatives in public services or in shops-companies for the purchase of goods-offering services.
  10. • It is pointed out that hospitals or public services do not use the practice of their employees going to homes or public places and asking citizens to pay money for services they provide.

Every citizen, every time they observe this type of behavior or people approaching either them or someone from their close environment, with the intention of deceiving them, but also in the event that a sum of money is extracted from them by deceiving them, it is advisable to immediately inform the Police Authorities and to report, respectively, the incident. They can contact the Security Department of their area, while for immediate police intervention they can contact the Immediate Action by calling the three-digit number 100, even by sending a free text message (SMS) to the same number.