England fans in Düsseldorf are in acute danger of falling foul of a shocking ATM scam that police say is plaguing the city.
Compared to the UK, Germany is a surprisingly digital laggard, and cash remains very much king.
Although the use of plastics has skyrocketed since the corona, today euro coins and banknotes remain the only means of payment in many pubs and cafes.
But England fans now turning to box offices in Dusseldorf are at extremely serious risk of losing their money to fraud.
In an “urgent warning”, a spokesman for the Düsseldorf police said: “This week there has been an increase in ATM tampering offenses in the city of Düsseldorf.
“Victims said their EC cards were apparently withdrawn from ATMs in use.
“During these operations, victims heard cracking noises and the display allegedly displayed a glitch: ‘This ATM will be ready for service again shortly.’
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At this point, the machine then swallowed the cards to the innocent victims, telling them that their request for cash would be processed soon.
However, instead of being returned, the bank cards were stolen by “unknown perpetrators and subsequently misused at the same ATM or at other locations.”
Düsseldorf police are now urging people not to use the ATM if they notice anything unusual.
And he writes that if they swallow your card, don’t leave the location, rather take out your mobile phone and call the bank or the police.
Although known for its engineering prowess, Germany is shockingly stuck in the digital stone age when it comes to payments.
A staggering 39 percent of all point-of-sale transactions in Germany were conducted with cold, hard cash in 2023, according to the European Central Bank (ECB).
While the rest of Europe is moving towards a cashless society, Germany remains a cash-holding digital dinosaur.
PYMNTS.com is a payments, commerce and fintech news platform. According to PYMNTS Intelligence’s 2023 “How the World Does Digital” report, Germany led miserably in a study of 11 countries with an average of 183 days of activity per year.
“Activity Day” measures how often consumers engage in digital activities such as banking, shopping and entertainment.
The countries studied were the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia, Japan, Singapore and Brazil.
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Brazil led the way with 361 days of activity, while Japan had the lowest at 127. Germany was next to last with 183 days of activity.
Even more eyebrow-raising is Germany’s shameful placement in the EU’s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), where it languishes in 21st place out of 28 countries in terms of digital public services.
Wifi can be infuriatingly patchy in Germany, and local governments are stuck in the past, with many still clinging to fax machines and suffering from poor broadband coverage.
Even more shockingly, at a time when it desperately needs government investment in this area, instead of increasing funding, the federal government has instead cut it.
The total federal budget for 2024, which is 476 billion euros, allocates an incredible 70.5 billion euros for investments.
And yet the government here decided to spend only 3.3 million euros on administrative digitization.
Even worse, this amount has been drastically reduced from the €377 million allocated in 2023 for administrative digitalisation.