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Sophie Pams
Published on
Nov 16 2024 at 10:03 a.m
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The end of the year is approaching (so Christmas), and with it, the classic sale of calendars. Firefighters, waste collection agents, La Poste postmen… During November and December 2024, they will surely be some to come and knock on your houseto offer you the 2025 calendar.
The initiative opens the door to scammers, who take advantage of it to try to sell fake calendars. In Loudéac (Côtes-d'Armor), Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) or even in Tarn, some are doubling down on their imagination to carry out their scam. Caution !
Usual phenomenon
The fake calendar scam is a phenomenon observed every year as the holidays approach. Nothing exceptional this year therefore, as confirmed by the National Gendarmerie, questioned by actu.fr.
“We do not have any specific system on this subject, we are only renewing our call for vigilance. We must report any suspicious behavior to the gendarmerie, to increase our presence in the neighborhoods affected by the malicious individuals “, she says.
Some reflexes to adopt
To protect yourself from fake sellers, here are some reflexes to have, as the prefectures remind us:
– never let a stranger into your home;
– ask the seller for his professional card;
– check that the official logo of the institution appears on the calendar;
– do not hesitate to alert elderly or isolated people around you of this type of canvassing;
– report any suspicious or insistent behavior by dialing 17 or 112.
Identity theft
Most of the time, scammers will impersonatewell-known entities, such as postmen, firefighters or waste collection agents.
This is for example the case in Vendée, where an alert was launched at the end of October 2024, in the country of Saint-Gilles. As reported Le Courrier Vendéen“a young man would go door to door . He would present himself as an agent of the Pays de Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie Agglomération and would then offer for sale a calendar for the year 2025 for the price of five euros.”
Ditto in Côtes-d'Armor, where individuals pose as agents of Guingamp-Paimpol Agglomération. At the beginning of November, the community called on its residents to be vigilant in the face of a series of scams reported on the territory.
“These scammers present themselves as waste pickers, or waste collection agents, claiming to work for the community. The Agglomeration reminds that the real community agents have no authorizationto sell or distribute calendars in exchange for sums of money,” she indicates to The Echo of Armor and Argoat.
In Morbihan, malicious individuals prefer to usurp the identity of La Poste postmen in mid-November. “We have been alerted by customers in Ploërmel that one or more people are posing as postmen to sell calendars. Our factors must sell their calendar outside of their working hours. And they only sell calendars from the Oberthur brand,” explains La Poste to the Ploermelais.
Sell free calendars
Others innovate to try to achieve their ends. In Loudéac (Côtes-d'Armor), the crooks have decided to use our local media , The Independent Mailto try to sell fake calendars.
“Since the end of October and at the beginning of November 2024, in the surroundings of Loudéac, several people have warned us of the presence of people with strange behavior», specifies The Independent Mailin an article published on November 10.
They offer calendars that they claim to sell in the name of Courrier Indépendant – actu.fr. with logos bearing the image of your media. But your newspaper does not sell any calendars. This is a scam!
In Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), individuals collect a calendar distributed free of chargein mailboxes, then try to resell it. Our editorial staff News Strasbourg alerted its readers on the subject at the end of October 2024, indicating that several reports were made to the Eurométropole and the City of Strasbourg on these doorstep canvassing .
“There are no sales of waste collection calendars in the territory of the Strasbourg Eurometropolis. These calendars are distributed at the end of the yearbetween mid-November and the beginning of January, free of charge in the mailboxes of all residents,” recalled the community to our local media.
Invent a fake calendar
The palm of creativityundoubtedly comes back to these crooks from Tarn, who “did not have their eyes in front of the holes”, as reported Occitanie news end of October 2024.
The latter have in fact chosen to create a calendar from scratch with a “nice little dog” on the cover, says the National Police on its networks. But a small detail quickly alerted people who purchased the item: all the dates were wrongwith January 1, 2025 falling… on a Thursday (and not a Wednesday).
“So be vigilant and take the time to checkthe proposed calendar and who sells it to you,” concluded the Tarn National Police on its Facebook post.
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