Fraud schemes. Digest No. 1

[Tomcat]

In fact, the only effective way to combat fraudsters that is available to us is information. The more scammers' schemes are heard, the weaker they will work. Our only way is to arm ourselves against different types of scammers. Increase, so to speak, the difficulty of breaking your inner lock. And the old formula “forewarned is forearmed” works as before.

Therefore, I ask you to disseminate this material as much as possible, especially to convey this information to those who are potentially more likely to become victims of scammers (for each scheme there are different categories).

If you or someone close to you has suffered from the actions of scammers, write in comments or private messages. It is very unlikely that you will be able to get your money back, but you can publicize your story to protect other people from getting into a similar unpleasant situation.

Currently popular scam schemes​

Of course, these are not all fraud schemes, but they are the most popular at the moment.

1. Timeless classic. A bank employee calls you​

The scammer calls the victim and introduces himself as someone working in the banking system.

Most often they appear:

• central office support staff (whatever that means)
• representatives of the financial monitoring service.

The scammer reports that the victim is experiencing:

• suspicious transaction
• change financial phone number
• bank account is closed

The hope here is that the victim will panic and critical thinking will turn off. Therefore, in these cases, scammers strictly prohibit the victim from interrupting dialogues and communicating with third parties. After which there are two main scenarios

Scenario 1: Fraudsters require you to install a remote access application on your phone to carry out “security work.”

This is a simpler way, designed to steal money from you here and now.

Scenario 2. Fraudsters continue to comprehensively process the victim so that the victim transfers all the money to a “safe account” and also accumulates credits.

In this way, the deception of a naive victim can drag on for weeks, if not months, and financial losses are measured in millions.

There are a great many variations of this scheme, I have outlined only a part here, but the essence comes down to the same thing. Unfortunately, it still remains relevant, no matter how much they talk about it in all sources.
Just remember: any call with such rhetoric - hang up.

2. Hello, this is a law enforcement officer calling​

In fact, this is one of the variations of the first scheme (even, as far as I know, these scammers are located in the same call centers), but a slightly different motive is involved here, so I put it in a separate paragraph.

The scammer calls the victim and introduces himself: full name, title, position. Most often, this is some kind of economic security department under the main directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation or something like that.

The scammer reports that:

• “We have received materials to initiate a criminal case on the fact of fraud, you are the injured party, scammers are using your data to deceive people.”
• “A case has been opened for forgery of documents, your full name has a power of attorney on your behalf, he goes to bank branches and tries to withdraw money.”
• “A bank employee (who has already been taken) stole and sold your EUR (single intra-bank details) to scammers. That is, access to all your accounts and deposits in all banks at once"
• Recently, I’ve often seen the following: “Money was transferred from your account to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

In this scheme, scammers play both on the fear of losing money and on a sense of justice, expressed in the desire to help catch criminals.

Then everything is the same, you need to transfer the money to a secure account.

Unfortunately, you should not underestimate the impact on people when scammers use such a scheme. Often, convincing a victim that she is a victim can be extremely difficult. Here are some illustrative examples:

An employee of whatever calls - hang up. Let a real employee issue a subpoena. If he doesn’t summon you with a subpoena, it doesn’t mean that much that he needed to talk to you. And you should not communicate with scammers at all.

3. We want to steal your public services, help us​

One of the most popular telephone fraud schemes in recent times. Most likely, this is due to the development of the functionality of the State Services portal, as well as the news background about the tightening of the rules of mobile operators.

The victim receives a call from a scammer who introduces himself as your cellular operator and says something like:

• “Your contract for the provision of communication services is expiring”
• “Your phone number is subject to blocking”

After which the scammers say that the victim needs to confirm the number through the State Services portal, at the same time initiating the restoration of access to the person’s State Services. The victim can only name the code from the SMS message.

This is a very dangerous fraud scheme, because access to a person’s public services gives scammers a whole range of opportunities. At the same time, calls from “mobile operators” are not as well known as calls from “banks” or “law enforcement agencies”

4. Passive income in the field of investments​

There are an endless number of advertisements scattered all over the Internet.

Often scammers introduce themselves as some kind of investment project of a well-known broker, and for some reason they also like to introduce themselves as Gazprom (in the past, advertisements for scammers were often shown in YouTube advertisements).

The victim clicks on the link, leaves his contact information, and is contacted by scammers who trick him into transferring money to “investment accounts.”

This is a long-term deception scheme in which the victim is periodically shown how his money is growing, motivating him to send more and more money to the scammers. And when the victim begins to suspect something and wants to withdraw money, the scammers say that in order to withdraw money, you need to pay a tax or something like that, thereby siphoning the last money out of the victim.

You'd be surprised how often victims of this scheme write to me. I believe that it has a huge scale, similar to the previous ones. The most important thing here is to understand that the money that the victim sends is stolen from the very beginning. The fact that they grow somewhere there is all fiction. If you or your loved one are in a similar situation and are in it now, then keep in mind that in this case there is nothing to save, it is important to completely stop the losses.

5. Earning money in the field of crypto investments​

This is a private and frequent variant of the previous scheme. Only here is a slightly different way of attraction. Usually, scammers create telegram channels with supposedly successful cryptocurrency traders (and for verification they are simply actors). They promise that they can successfully trade with other people’s money, the victim transfers the cryptocurrency to the specified wallets, and then the scheme is repeated exactly.

6. Social activities​

In this scheme, scammers most often use mass mailings, although they sometimes also use advertising. The point is to convince victims that some kind of activity is currently taking place in the country, for example:

• Checking banknotes for authenticity.
• Additional payment for children (this was especially important during the covid years).
• Some new social benefit.

The scammers goal is to get the victim to either install a malicious application or enter their data on the website. For example, the victim is convinced that she is entitled to a benefit payment, and in order to receive it, she must enter her card details, including her CVV. Or to receive money you need to enter the code from SMS.

This is a very vile scheme, because, as you can see, it is aimed at vulnerable segments of the population. Never fall for such dubious offers, and don’t let your family do the same.

7. Special offer for those interested in finance​

The victims of this scheme are subscribers of popular author’s telegram channels about investments, in which the possibility of comments is open.

Fraudsters create an account that completely copies the account of the channel author, which is almost impossible to distinguish. For example, they replace the large letter “i” with a small letter “L” and completely copy the photo and description.

Next, on behalf of the channel author, they begin to write to “their” subscribers, saying, friend, there is a special investment offer for you. And then the scheme is essentially identical to points 4 or 5 (depending on the topic of the channel).

If a popular author writes to you in private messages and offers you a lucrative deal, then you are unlikely to have pulled out a golden ticket. Most likely, scammers are simply trying to deceive you, hiding behind someone else’s name. It is important to block such people immediately.

8. Maybe we can make a safe transaction on Avito?​

In different variations in this scheme, the victim can be both the seller and the buyer. Most often, the scammer tries to transfer the conversation from the Avito chat to third-party messengers, where he offers to conduct a secure transaction. Further options are possible when:

• scammer steals money for delivery
• fraudster steals buyer's money for goods
• the fraudster steals the product itself (but this is less common).

In fact, there are simply an incredible number of scammers hanging around on Avito. A day would probably not be enough to list all the schemes that were and are being practiced there. Be extremely careful in transactions like this.

9. Pseudo-lawyers “helping” victims of scammers​

When the victim of any, essentially, fraud scheme realizes that her money has been stolen, she begins to panic and frantically look for someone who could help return at least part of this money. And then “vultures” appear, pseudo-lawyers who say that we know ways to return the money, but we also need to pay, and urgently, before the money disappears completely.

A stressed victim often goes to borrow money or scrapes out the last in the fading hope of returning what was stolen, but no, these people also turn out to be scammers. These are the real scum who “finish off the downtrodden.”

If you realize that you have become a victim of scammers, then the main thing is to stop panicking. Unfortunately, your money will most likely not be returned, but it is very important to prevent even greater losses.

10. Foreign scammers from dating sites​

Decades have passed, but scammers are still actively practicing this scheme. Only now they have crawled to Tinder and other dating apps, as well as social networks.

The victims of this scheme are most often single girls and women who want to build a personal life with an attractive foreigner (by the way, Asians are in fashion now, I don’t know why). At the same time, communications that do not mention any financial interactions can continue for months. That is, for scammers it is a long game.

And so, after some long period of communication, the scammer begins to lead the victim along one of two paths:

Path 1. The scammer begins to tell how he successfully makes money from investments, shows his beautiful life and invites the victim to also try to gain financial freedom. And then scheme 4 or 5 begins.

Path 2. According to the classic scams from dating sites, the scammer offers to organize a meeting, but either he needs money for a ticket for him, or he needs to make some kind of deposit so that the victim can come to him.

This scheme often has one weak point - the fact that the scammer almost never agrees to a video call. So check the facts that your friends tell you about themselves. And never transfer money to such entities, no matter how much you might want to.

Unfortunately, the reality is that scammers are always one step ahead of law enforcement. Fraudsters first come up with a scheme and begin to use it, and only after that law enforcement officers figure out how to cover up this scheme.

Therefore, for our part, all we can do is use publicity.

I, in turn, will try to release such digests systematically.

(с) https://habr.com/ru/articles/790124/