CTP fraud schemes

[Lord777]

Elena Moshelovka, a subscriber from Smolensk, faced fraud when reissuing the CTP policy. The term of her insurance was expiring, and when an agent of Rosgosstrakh allegedly wrote to her with a proposal to issue a new document, Elena was not surprised.

"Agent" requested the details of the documents and then sent Elena a policy in PDF format to check the correctness of filling in. She asked to transfer payment for her services to an MTS-bank card. Elena suspected something was wrong: it seemed wrong to pay for CTP on a personal bank card. She refused to transfer the money and published her story on the social network with an indication of the fraudster's account. After that, she and her relatives, including children, were threatened. People were promised to "teach and punish" them. Threats were received from several accounts at once. Elena received a lot of SMS messages with links to "log in to online banking" and "register on websites".

Elena described all this in a statement to the police. A criminal case has already been opened, and an investigation is underway.

This is a common scheme, in most cases it does not arouse suspicion among the victim and scammers receive money. Elena caught herself just in time. Her personal data was leaked to the scammers, she was nervous, but she did not pay the scammers.

Let's talk about some other fraud schemes with OSAGO.

Fake policy​

The most common scheme that boils down to using a fake or stolen policy form. After the purchase, it turns out that the form has nothing to do with the specified insurance company or is listed as damaged or lost.

What to do: the easiest way is to check the validity of the policy using the database of the Russian Union of Motor Insurers, which reflects all car insurance policies and their statuses. If the PCA database is not available, you can call the specified insurance company and its employees will use the policy number to tell you what its status is.

Fake data​

A more "clever" scheme used when selling electronic CTP policies. Recently, it has been used quite rarely, but such cases are known. Scammers here act as intermediaries between the car owner and the insurance company. They submit data for the car to the insurance company, changing its characteristics that affect the price of the policy (engine power, age and length of service of the driver, the region of his registration, etc.), while maintaining the real license plate and VIN. After receiving a policy with a minimum insurance premium, they retouch it, replacing the fake data with real ones, and sell it to the victim, receiving the full price from him. As a result, the car owner has a formally real policy registered in the RSA database, but after getting into an accident, he will be refused payment, because when checking the policy, the data available in it does not correspond to the real characteristics of the vehicle.

What to do: when buying a policy through an agent, it is difficult to recognize this scheme, so it is better to buy an electronic policy yourself – so you will be absolutely sure that all the data is entered correctly. If you still decide to issue it through an agent, you can pre-calculate its cost on the websites of insurance companies. The price will vary from company to company, but it cannot fluctuate by more than 15-20% within the same region.

"Moving"​

This scheme is also relevant for the sale of e-MTPL and is used in regions with a high regional coefficient, for example, in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Fraudsters, acting as intermediaries, indicate as the region of registration of the car owner another region in which the regional coefficient is much lower (Crimea, Kalmykia, the republics of the North Caucasus, etc.). The victim receives a real policy, but pays the full price for it, and in the event of an accident, the insurance company will refuse payment due to a mismatch in the region of registration.

What to do: as in the previous scheme, it is better to make out the policy yourself or at least calculate its cost.

Phishing​

The fraud tool in this scheme is fake sites that allegedly sell CTP policies. The damage goes in two directions at once:

1. car owner gets a fake policy;
2. fraudsters get the victim's bank data, which they can use in other schemes.

What to do: buy policies only on the official websites of insurance companies, a list of which is available on the website of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. An additional precaution is to use a separate bank card with a limited amount of money on it to pay for online purchases.

Call from the insurance company​

This scheme is a bit like the one Elena was almost dragged into. Scammers create the appearance of communicating with the insurance company. First, the "agent" calls, who asks the victim for all the details of the car for reissuing the policy, then he sends a scan of the policy and says that the car owner will be contacted by the payment department. After some time, the "payment department employee" sends the victim a link to pay with a card that is valid for a limited time, and rushes with the payment. As a result, the victim loses money and receives a fake policy, which will not be paid out.

What to do: always pay attention to the addresses from which messages are sent, and to the "for payment"links: as a rule, fraudsters use domains that differ from the official domains of insurance companies and banks. Also, a rush on the part of the "payment department employee" should cause suspicion: this technique is aimed at distracting the victim's attention.

These are not all the schemes used, there are many more of them – from the simplest ones (get money and disappear without even providing a fake policy) to complex "multi-pass" schemes involving several participants. Let's analyze the main signs that can be used to identify fraudsters.

• Company name. Insurance companies apply for renewal of insurance (registration of a new policy) only to their existing customers.
• Cost of the policy. Scammers offer to issue a policy at prices significantly lower than market prices, explaining this as a "promotion " or"reduced base rate for regular customers." You can calculate the real cost of the policy on the websites of insurance companies. Within one region, the price can fluctuate by no more than 15-20%.
• Payment method. Real insurance companies and their agents never accept payments to personal bank cards.
• A set of requested documents. If you are offered to purchase a policy from a company that you have not previously been a client of, the agent must request three documents: the owner's/policyholder's passport, a car or vehicle registration certificate, and a driver's license. Fraudsters usually request only the data that should be reflected in the policy.
• A set of submitted documents. Almost all insurance companies issue the following documents when selling a CTP policy: a payment receipt (2-3 copies), an original and a copy of the policy, an application and a form of the European protocol. After signing the necessary documents, you still have the original policy, receipt and form of the European protocol. You will only get a policy and, at best, a receipt from the scammers.

Inability to obtain the policy in person. As a rule, fraudsters impose courier delivery of the policy under various pretexts so that the buyer does not need to visit the insurance company. Prepositions can be different: the remoteness of the office, "we only have a call center here" , etc. If you insist, they will agree and recommend contacting any office of "their" company, but there you will pay the full price for the policy issued in accordance with all the rules.

• Agency agreement. Insurance companies ' websites contain registers of their agents/partners with agency agreements. You can ask a suspicious agent to provide their contract number and check it on the site. If the number doesn't match or the name of the representative in the policy (at the bottom of the form) doesn't match the name in the contract, it's probably a fraudster.
• License. Often scammers sell fake policies of companies that have already revoked their license to work on the registration of OSAGO policies – such policies are obviously invalid. There are also cases of selling policies of companies where temporary management has already been introduced and revocation of a license is a matter of one to two months. The easiest way to check the status of a company is to enter its name in the search engine and view the "news" section. You can also check the data on the website of the RSA or the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

We hope this will help you save money. By entering into a deal with fraudsters, you not only risk losing money: if the traffic police inspector notices a violation, you will have to pay a fine for not having a policy, and in the event of an accident, the deceived driver will compensate for the damage out of his own pocket.