ÖGK email asking for your bank details? This is a scam
A fake email currently circulating in the name of the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) is making the rounds. It features the green "Meine ÖGK" logo, cites a reference number, and claims that a benefit payment of nearly 3,000 euros for the year 2025 has already been approved. To release the funds, the recipient is told they must "update" their bank details once and log in to their online banking to do so. Anyone who follows the link lands on a page that looks deceptively similar to the real ÖGK portal. However, it is hosted at a foreign address that only sounds similar. The official service portal can only be accessed at meine.oegk.at.
Four points expose the message before you even click. The ÖGK pays benefits into the account it already has on file and does not send emails that lead to online banking. No one needs your login credentials to credit an account – accepting money works without a password. The ÖGK knows your name and does not address you with an anonymous "Good day." Furthermore, the seven-day deadline is purely intended to create pressure.
What makes this particularly dangerous is that even SMS-TANs do not protect you here. Behind the fake page sits a person who reads your entries in real-time and immediately types them into your bank's actual website. There, they initiate a transfer to their own account. Your bank then sends you a TAN or an authorization request in your banking app – and if you confirm it, you are not confirming a login, but their transfer. Messages such as "Your login details are incorrect" or "The code was invalid" are also displayed by the scammers to obtain your data a second time. This explicitly includes the corporate customer accounts of several large Austrian banks.
What you should do: Always read the text in the TAN SMS or in the banking app before confirming – it contains the recipient and the amount. If something does not match, cancel the process. Check the address bar in your browser; the padlock symbol alone says nothing about the authenticity of a site, as scammers can also use encryption. If you are unsure, close the message and call the organization using the number from their official website, never a number from the suspicious message. If you have already entered data, call your bank immediately and have your access blocked.