Stand:updated on 20.03.2025 | Topic Consumer protection Beware of fraudulent term deposit offers
Consumers seeking term deposit accounts with good conditions will find a wide range of offers. However, not all of them are legitimate. In quite a number of cases, the money you transfer will end up in a fraudster’s account.
Key points
- If you wish to open a term deposit account, you generally have to do it yourself. That includes accounts that are located in other European countries.
- One clear indication of fraud is if the supposed advisor or intermediary contacts you by phone, email or via an online platform, offers to open an account at a foreign partner bank for you and says that you should transfer the amount that you wish to invest to this new account.
- The money will not end up in “your account”; it will end up in an account belonging to the fraudster. The IBAN you receive will not be for a new term deposit account; it will be the fraudster’s bank account number.
How do fraudsters operate?
It can be difficult to determine whether a term deposit offer is legitimate. Fraudsters act professionally and convey a sense of security and reliability. They also use various channels to sell their supposed offerings to customers.
What you should look out for:
- Fake comparison websites: fraudsters use elaborately designed comparison websites or fake versions of popular comparison platforms to sell their supposed term deposits.
- Fake websites of well-known companies: fraudsters intentionally replicate the websites of well-known companies, e.g. banks. This is an attempt to gain the trust of potential customers and lure them into concluding a fake term deposit contract.
- Term deposit intermediaries: Some fraudsters assume the role of advisers or intermediaries and contact potential victims by phone or via instant messaging services.
Fraudsters send out deceptively realistic application forms
The application forms that customers receive often look deceivingly authentic. In some cases, they will refer to a purported (well-known) partner bank, claiming your money will be protected by a deposit guarantee scheme. You might also be redirected to a website that looks like it belongs to the partner bank. This is where you will be asked to fill out an online application form that is supposedly for your term deposit account.
Our advice
Never click on the link to the website that supposedly belongs to the partner bank. You should instead use a search engine to search for the bank by name and only use its primary website.
Does the partner bank fail to perform any verification of identity when supposedly opening your term deposit account? Are you asked merely for a copy of an identification document? This should immediately set the alarm bells ringing. A proper identification process is mandatory for private individuals when opening an account at a bank. In order to verify your identity to the bank, you can use the video identification process, the “Postident” process or go to your bank branch in person. The only way to verify your identity is for you to do it personally.
Video identification process
With this service, you identify yourself to the bank or a subcontractor in a video call, often via a smartphone app. To confirm your identity, you must present a valid identity card or passport to the camera and answer a few questions. This form of verification can only take place via end-to-end encrypted video calls.
Be careful: only provide your personal data if you are certain that the person requesting it is trustworthy. In the wrong hands, such data could be abused for other criminal activities, e.g. to register an internet domain for a fraudulent website.
Note
The procedures are different if you invest in term deposits via a brokerage platform that is working in cooperation with a bank. Depending on the business model, you may first have to open a reference account at the bank. In order to open the reference account, you will have to undergo a proper identity verification process. You will then be able to select from a range of term deposit offers. The partner bank will act on your behalf and open term deposit accounts for you at other banks. This means that no additional verification of identity will be subsequently required for each term deposit account.
Fraudsters will request that you transfer the investment amount to the term deposit account that they claim has been opened for you
If you have not personally verified your identity to open the account, turn back now! Do not transfer any money. Even if you have already registered for the supposed term deposit offer, you are simply being lulled into believing the IBAN is for a term deposit account that has been set up in your name. The account in fact belongs to the fraudster or an accomplice. Customers can be deceived here because, despite the fact that your name may well be stated as the account holder, it is only the IBAN that actually matters. Banks do not check the names of recipients on transfer orders against the names of the actual account holders.
The supposed term deposit account is often at a foreign bank and therefore has a foreign international bank account number (IBAN). An indication of this is if the IBAN starts with a prefix other than the “DE” that precedes German accounts. Fraudsters often use foreign accounts because cross-border fraud cases are difficult for German and foreign authorities to prosecute.
Do banks have to review and even block transactions?
For the identification of customers for money transfers, it is only necessary for your bank and the payment recipient’s bank to review the IBAN and the bank identifier code (BIC). The name of the payment recipient does not undergo review.
This means that the banks concerned do not have to compare names and confirm that the name of the transfer recipient, i.e. you, is identical to the name of the holder of the account with the specified IBAN. The bank can carry out the transfer without further scrutiny. In other words, the bank will carry out the transfer even if the name specified as recipient does not match the name associated with the IBAN. Should this happen, getting the money back from the incorrect recipient will be your own responsibility.
Fraudsters usually break off contact at this point and the money you thought you invested in a term deposit account will vanish
The “Customer account” that you can access on the intermediary’s website will continue to provide you with an overview of your investment’s supposed performance. However, the money you transferred is actually in the fraudster’s account and you will be unable to access it.
What to bear in mind before opening a term deposit account
Find out who you are dealing with
Gather as much information as you can about the term deposit provider and the intermediary.
Search the internet for the name of the supposed term deposit intermediary and supposed partner bank and read reviews by other consumers. But be careful: fraudsters know that customers conduct such research and they therefore ensure they have good online ratings.
Always check the legal notice on the website. Does the website even have a legal notice? If not, then steer well clear of it. Is the legal notice complete? Are there any mistakes or inconsistencies in the company name or address? You should nonetheless also remember that a complete and impeccable legal notice is no guarantee that the offeror is trustworthy. Names of real companies are often fraudulently used in legal notices. Sometimes, real company names are only slightly altered so that the difference is barely noticeable to readers. Our advice is that you pay close attention to spelling.
Carry out a WHOIS domain search. Many fraudulent operations have websites claiming that they have long been active on the market. A WHOIS domain search will quickly determine the credibility of such claims. Many of the websites have only been registered for weeks or months and details about the operator are often anonymised.
When performing research, you should also look at the BaFin website, especially the warnings section. BaFin regularly publishes warnings about companies operating without the required authorisation and about certain products, services and business practices. This information can be found in the “Warnings and latest news for consumers” section of our website. Please note that due to the large number of fraudulent providers and their ever-changing methods, the warnings on the BaFin website are by no means an exhaustive listing. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) also publishes warnings for consumers on its website. In addition, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) has a subsection on its website where it publishes warnings and investor alerts that it receives from its members, i.e. from national supervisory authorities that have joined IOSCO. The German consumer organisation Stiftung Warentest also maintains a list of dubious companies and financial products.
Contact the credit institution or partner bank at which the accounts are supposedly held
Fraudulent websites and financial intermediaries seek to convey a sense of security and reliability by claiming that they cooperate with renowned partner banks. This is why application forms for term deposit accounts often display the logo of a well-known bank. It is also why potential customers are often redirected to what looks like a secondary website of the bank in order to open an account.
Contacting the partner bank before you invest your money is the easiest and most secure way to ensure that the term deposit offer is in fact with that bank. You could, for example, forward the term deposit agreement that you received from the intermediary to the partner bank. To do so, you should only ever use the email address stated on the relevant bank’s official website. You can also phone the bank and ask whether they really cooperate with the offeror. When doing so, you should only use the phone numbers that you can find on the official website of the bank.
Carefully examine the term deposit offer
Although spectacularly high interest rates were a reasonably sound indication of fraudulent offers in the past, fraudsters are now taking a shrewder approach. Many fraudulent term deposit offers no longer promise exorbitantly high interest rates. This makes it all the more important to carefully scrutinise the offer and the offeror and to bear all the pointers provided above in mind.
Do not be fooled by claims about awards or slick websites
Many fraudulent websites offering term deposit accounts have been professionally designed and look genuine at first glance.
Spelling and grammar mistakes may indicate that the website is a scam. However, even if there are no spelling or grammar mistakes, it does not mean that the website is reliable.
Don’t allow yourself to be lured into making an investment by the seals of approval, awards or good ratings that the offeror boasts on its own website.
Don’t let anybody hurry you
Some supposed term deposit intermediaries try to make you feel that you must act quickly. Don’t let anyone push you. You should always carefully examine the offer.
What can you do if you have become a victim of fraud?
If you have become a victim of fraud, you should report the matter to the police or the public prosecutor’s office immediately. If in doubt, you can also contact BaFin. You can reach the consumer helpline free of charge at 0800 2 100 500.
