There has been an increase in instances of fraudsters misusing BaFin's name to gain the confidence of unsuspecting consumers and lend credence to their unlawful demands. For example, they might claim to be BaFin employees in phone calls or e mails, using the names of actual BaFin employees without their knowledge. Consumers have also received letters featuring a forged BaFin letterhead or logo, and there are frequent cases of scammers using fake “BaFin certificates” that purport to represent a licence or authorisation from BaFin. Likewise, consumers have received letters that appear to have been sent by members of the BaFin Executive Board demanding payment of fees to BaFin. However, these letters were actually sent by fraudsters.

In light of this, BaFin urges consumers to exercise caution:

Be wary of communications supposedly from BaFin employees. BaFin does not contact individuals to offer them advice on financial products or demand payments to specific accounts. Ignore requests to make a payment to a supposed BaFin account in order to confirm your identity or your account, for instance.

BaFin therefore asks all consumers who are contacted with such offers or demands to refuse them and to report them to the police or the public prosecutor's office. If in doubt, you can also contact BaFin itself. You can reach BaFin's consumer helpline free of charge at 0 800 2 100 500 (or, if calling from outside Germany: +49 (0) 228 299 70 299).

Wide variety of scams

Fraudsters have a number of tricks up their sleeves. For instance, BaFin has been made aware of several cases in which consumers were contacted by an unknown caller claiming to work for BaFin. In these calls, BaFin’s fax number came up on the telephone display. The callers threatened to freeze the consumers’ bank accounts or initiate a debt recovery process if the consumers did not pay a certain amount of money.

In another scam, fake invoices, sometimes in English, are sent to retail investors under BaFin’s name.

You can lose a lot of money to fraudulent, unauthorised online trading platforms: employees of these platforms call consumers and aggressively demand that they invest ever-increasing amounts. Once they have invested their money, consumers attempt in vain to get it back. Having obtained customer data, fraudsters then often pose as good Samaritans aiming to help consumers recoup their lost funds. These criminals often claim to have been engaged by, or even to work for, trustworthy authorities such as BaFin. In many – but not all – cases, the poor quality of the language used in correspondence on (alleged) BaFin letterhead offers a telltale sign that the correspondence is fake.

BaFin does not recruit consumers to test accounts

Scammers are not always after consumers' wallets when they use BaFin's name fraudulently. For instance, in 2019, several cases came to light in which unknown criminals posed as BaFin employees on the telephone or online and invited people to open a test account with a credit institution. These criminals then used the data harvested by means of a fake account set-up process to open accounts with the institution in those persons' names, presumably in order to use them for criminal purposes.

BaFin has also become aware of a number of cases in which companies dishonestly advertise jobs in “Treuhandservice” (escrow services). We would like to make it clear that, contrary to the information provided in these job adverts, BaFin does not register or manage escrow accounts. Applicants in these cases are asked to use their own accounts for the onward transfer of funds gained through criminal activities. Consumers who work in these "escrow services" may themselves be committing a crime.

Consumers must be vigilant

These examples illustrate how varied the tricks used by fraudsters are who misuse BaFin's name. On its German website, BaFin regularly reports scams when it is made aware that its name is being used fraudulently. At the same time, fraudsters are always coming up with new tricks. Be vigilant! It is often difficult to tell when someone is acting with criminal intent, and the approaches used by criminals are constantly changing.