Email Scam More Convincing than Ever.

Today, I almost fell for a scam that reached me via email. A company called Sixtus Software sent us an invoice with our company's full billing details. Since I had recently registered with another portal, the invoice arrived as credible to me.

For a moment, I thought I had made a mistake during my registration, which could have resulted in this invoice for €1,381.70. But then I did some research online and found out that it was in fact a scam that had targeted several people under various pretexts.

Invoices related to web services are being sent out under the name Sixtus Software. And I even found the exact invoice amount in the information made public by the potential victims. A bank account in the Netherlands is listed as the payee, and our company data appears to come from an official industry register.

Some victims report that they were even sent reminders and charged interest on arrears. Normally, I would not consider reporting on this topic on our website, but the trend is growing rapidly. And, as technology advances, these scams are becoming increasingly difficult to detect.

Often, these are invoices for the use of copyrighted images that were previously made available free of charge. Here, too, reminders and fines are not uncommon. Once you pay, you become an easy victim for extortion. But emails with phishing links are just as dangerous. It is therfore always best to go directly to the source and not via the link.

Nowadays, even images and voices can be faked, so you need to be vigilant. Older people in particular are easy targets. A good friend of mine from Frankfurt was sold a share in an advertising concept in Dubai for EUR 60,000 by supposed investors, who guided the then 79-year-old man through all the necessary identification procedures online.

And it's not always strangers or relatives who are affected. In 2023, a website interfered with my browser (key logger) and recorded my credit card details, causing me EUR 3,000 in damages for a short time, until the card issuer noticed the fraud and restored the affected accounts.

So, always be careful.

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