Man posing as doctor tries to deceive woman out of €20,000

An attempted scam against an elderly woman in Dasoupoli was foiled on Monday, after unknown perpetrators tried to extort €20,000 from her for a medical operation she was told her granddaughter needed.

The woman received a call on Monday morning from a man posing as a doctor. He told her that her granddaughter was involved in an accident and that she needed to undergo emergency surgery.

“The man asked my grandmother to wire him €20,000 immediately,” the victim’s granddaughter told Cyprus Mail.

“He also told her that my fiancée was there with him and that the operation needs to happen as soon as possible.”

The woman, however, decided to call her granddaughter’s fiancée on his mobile phone to confirm the story and eventually realised she was part of a scam.

“After she spoke to my fiancée, we finally managed to talk. She was relieved to know I was not in danger,” the granddaughter said.

“The scammer even gave his name, posing as ‘Dr Nicos Economoupoulos’. It all sounded very convincing.”

There are no online records indicating that a doctor using the name given operates in Cyprus.

The two women then headed to the local police station in Dasoupoli, where police officers told them the scam was not the first one reported in the area.

Last week, in fact, scammers managed to trick a 79-year-old woman into paying €9,000 for an operation she was told her daughter desperately needed.

Following the scammer’s instructions, the 79-year-old then went to a churchyard near the bank branch and left the cash in a bin.

Upon returning home, the mother saw her daughter and realised that she had been the victim of an elaborate fraud.

Nicosia police confirmed that they are investigating both cases.

They also reminded the public to be extremely cautious with such types of calls or requests and contact a local police station or inform the authorities by calling 1460.