"Added by mistake": SMS fraud scheme with an erroneous transfer

Father

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Anna:
I received an SMS that someone put $ 10 on my phone. Then the man called and said that he had mistakenly sent the amount to someone else's account (mine). I politely listened to him and offered to solve the problem with the help of the operator. The man replied that the operator refused him, and he himself is disabled, for him $ 10 is a lot of money. I reiterated that my participation in the refund is optional. This was followed by insistent and rude demands to immediately return the erroneous translation. It is not difficult to solve this problem through an operator, and I knew very well about this, so I did not tolerate rudeness and just hung up.
I once again looked through the SMS about the receipt of funds, this time carefully, and realized that it only imitates an SMS from a mobile operator, in fact, it is just some kind of abstract number. I checked the balance on my phone and made sure that it was not replenished by $ 10.

Financial Culture Expert:
Mistaken translation is a simple and fairly common fraudulent scheme. If the fraudster thinks that his interlocutor hesitates, he begins to put pressure on emotions, appeals to pity, sympathy and justice. The amount that fraudsters ask to "return" usually ranges from $ 2 to $ 15, since this is not such a lot of money for the victim to start proceedings because of them. At the same time, having increased the coverage of the mailing list to dozens of people, scammers may well collect a substantial amount.
To protect yourself, you should always check the information received: you received an SMS about replenishing your account - pay attention to the sender's name and send a standard short command to check the balance.
Today, mobile operators provide an opportunity to return money mistakenly transferred to someone else's account. True, if this is a large amount, you will have to contact the office. In any case, this means that if someone does transfer funds to you by mistake, they will be able to solve this problem without your participation.
Always take the check when you fund your phone account through the terminal - it can be used by fraudsters to contact the operator and "return" your money to themselves.
 
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