Fake Facebook sale costs woman 24,000 kroner as scammers issue threats

DR reports that Tina Pieth Hannotte transferred 24,000 kroner for a circus wagon advertised on Facebook, but never received it. The fraudsters behind the fake sales advertisements have also issued serious threats against people who expose them.

Pieth Hannotte bought the wagon for her allotment house, where there is so little space that she cannot lie down to rest. The advertisement described a cheap circus wagon, which was actually a newly built annex with room for a bed and a small kitchenette.

She paid 24,000 kroner for the annex and its interior after seeing the advertisement. The fraudsters had taken photographs from the manufacturer’s website and used them in the fake listing.

“I’m so angry, disappointed and sad that other people can be like this,” Pieth Hannotte said. “I cannot and will not accept it.”

In DR’s Kontant programme, host Jacob Kragelund investigates a network of scammers who use other people’s names, photographs and addresses to collect money through fake sales advertisements.

Thomas Woer from Funen has repeatedly received written and verbal threats against himself and his family after making a hobby of finding the fake advertisements and warning others about them.

“It’s despicable. Vulnerable people are being coldly defrauded,” Woer said. “I will fight it with all my heart and soul.”

A recording included in the programme captures a scammer threatening Woer’s life during a telephone call.

The fraudsters use so-called money mules, who often make their bank accounts available for transfers linked to financial crime in exchange for payment. The money is then quickly withdrawn or transferred to an account at another bank, making it harder for authorities to follow the trail.

Finance Denmark, the banking industry association, wants banks to have better opportunities to freeze suspicious transfers and exchange information about potential scammers.

“It is not about a private individual being able to call the bank and obtain information about who defrauded them,” said Kjeld Gosvig Jensen, a deputy director at Finance Denmark. “But if banks and authorities could help one another by exchanging information, it might prevent some of this.”

Finance Denmark also wants the sender’s bank to display the recipient’s name for transfers between private individuals.

Had that option been available, Pieth Hannotte would have seen that the recipient of her 24,000 kroner did not have the same name as the Facebook profile offering the circus wagon. The man shown in the profile photograph had himself been defrauded, after which the scammers created fake Facebook profiles using his name and image.

Pieth Hannotte has now abandoned her dream of having a circus wagon at her allotment house.

“I’ve used the money now, so no, it won’t happen now. Unfortunately,” she said.

East Jutland Police told DR’s Kontant that they have charged a suspect in her case. The police declined to comment further because the investigation is ongoing.