Legal entities, public organizations, and individual citizens in Bavaria have faced a mass mailing of doubtful payment documents for the amount of 46 euros. Specialists in the field of law urge recipients to ignore these receipts and contact law enforcement agencies.
The letter is designed as an official circular, and the amount specified in it does not attract extra attention, which constitutes the basis of the fraudulent calculation. Currently, commercial companies, artisan enterprises, public organizations, and self-employed citizens across Germany are en masse receiving correspondence on behalf of a firm under the name Datenschutzdienst Deutschland UG.
From the recipients, they demand to pay 46.41 euros as the so-called “Annual fee for ensuring compliance with the GDPR regulation.” The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) obliges all companies on the territory of the European Union to ensure the security of personal data, and large fines are provided for the violation of these norms.
Lawyer Mirabelle Schuster informed journalists that according to the results of a legal analysis, signs indicating the fraudulent nature of the demands were revealed. In the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Potsdam, they confirmed that entrepreneurs regularly become the target for similar methods of deception, especially when their corporate data is in open access in the commercial register. In the situation under consideration, the firm Datenschutzdienst Deutschland UG was entered into the commercial register by the district court of Braunschweig on January 9, 2026, with an authorized capital of 50 euros.
Boris Olshanski is registered as the head; however, the addresses indicated in the documents turned out to be fake. The demand for payment looks credible, but a check of the details indicates deception In the CCI of Potsdam, they recommend upon receiving suspicious letters to check the reliability of the sender’s data, the contact address, and the tax number, and in case of doubts, to request information about the company in the commercial register or in the Federal Gazette.
The address in Königslutter am Elm, indicated in the commercial register, factually relates to the guesthouse “Karin.” Another address in Frankfurt, figuring on the invoice letterheads, leads not to the office of a data protection company, but to administrative premises in the area of the location of Deutsche Bank, where no traces of the presence of the firm Datenschutzdienst Deutschland UG were discovered. This information was confirmed also in the Berlin Consumer Protection Forum.
The VAT identification number stamped in the receipts, according to the data of a legal check, does not exist. Thus, the document does not meet the legislative requirements presented for the design of invoices. A request by journalists to the German domain name registration service DENIC showed that not the specified firm is listed as the owner of the internet website, but an organization under the name Discount-Baushof GmbH, mentions of which in official registers could not be discovered.
Consumer protection societies also warned about the existence of other analogous schemes of deception. Fraud with a calculation on carelessness requires contacting the police The calculation on a small amount in the check is a deliberate strategy. In many companies, invoices for an amount of less than 50 euros are paid by the accounting department automatically without a detailed check, especially if they contain links to legal norms. Lawyer Schuster also explained that the scheme relies on this effect.
The presence in the details of an account in the German savings bank Sparkasse Celle-Gifhorn-Wolfsburg strengthens the illusion of reliability. Recipients of such letters should not transfer money. If there is no concluded contract or placed order between the parties, legal grounds for the demand of payment are absent. In the CCI of Potsdam, they added that such actions fall under the signs of fraud, and urged the affected organizations and citizens to immediately send applications to the police.
An application about an offense can be submitted in electronic form through the online services of the land police. To those who managed to transfer monetary funds, it is necessary to contact their bank for processing a payment reversal.
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