Fraudsters' schemes

[Man]

In fact, the only effective way to combat fraudsters that is available to us is information. The more you hear about fraudsters' schemes, the weaker they will work. Our only way is to arm ourselves against different types of fraudsters. To increase, so to speak, the difficulty of breaking our 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 fraudsters (for each scheme, these are different categories).

Popular scams at the moment​

Of course, these are far from all the fraudulent schemes, but they are the most popular at the moment.

1. Timeless classic: A bank employee calls you​

The victim receives a call from a fraudster who introduces himself as someone working in the banking system.

Most often, they introduce themselves as:

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

The scammer tells the victim that:

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

Here the expectation is that the victim will panic and critical thinking will switch off. Therefore, in these cases, the scammers strictly forbid the victim to interrupt the dialogues and communicate with third parties. After that, there are two main scenarios:

Scenario 1. The scammers demand that you install a remote access application on your phone to carry out "security work."

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

Scenario 2. The scammers continue to thoroughly process the victim so that the victim transfers all the money to a "safe account" and also takes out loans.

In this way, the deception of a naive victim can last for weeks, if not months, and the 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 work in the same call centers), but here a slightly different motive is used, so I highlighted it in a separate point.

The scammer calls the victim, introduces himself: full name, rank, position. Most often, this is some kind of economic security department at the main department 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, the fraudsters are using your data to deceive people"
• "A case has been opened for forgery of documents, FULL NAME has a power of attorney on your behalf, he goes to bank branches and tries to withdraw"
• "A bank employee (who has already been caught) stole and sold your EVR (single internal bank account details) to scammers. That is, access to all your accounts and deposits in all banks at once"
• Another thing that has been frequently encountered lately is: “Money was transferred from your account to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

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

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

Unfortunately, you should not underestimate the impact on people of the use of such a scheme by scammers. Often, convincing the victim that he is a victim is extremely difficult. Here are some clear examples

If an employee of any kind calls, hang up. Let a real employee call you with a subpoena. If he doesn't call you with a subpoena, it doesn't mean he really needed to talk to you. And you shouldn't talk to scammers at all.

3. We want to hijack your State 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 rules for mobile operators.

The victim receives a call from a fraudster who introduces himself as your mobile 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, simultaneously initiating the restoration of access to the person's State Services. The victim only needs to provide the code from the SMS message.

This is a very dangerous fraud scheme, because access to a person's State Services gives fraudsters 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 endless advertisements scattered all over the internet. Like this one:

Often, scammers introduce themselves as some investment project of a well-known broker, and for some reason they also like to introduce themselves as Gazprom (previously, scammers' ads were often shown on YouTube).

The victim follows the link, leaves their contact information, the scammers contact them and trick them into transferring money to "investment accounts".

This is a long-term fraud scheme, in which the victim is periodically shown how their money is growing, motivating them to send more and more money to the scammers. And when the victim begins to suspect something and wants to withdraw the money, the scammers say that in order to withdraw it, they need to pay a tax or something like that, thereby pumping the last money out of the victim.

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

5. Earnings in the field of crypto investments​

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

6. Social activities​

In this scheme, scammers most often work with mass mailings, although they sometimes use advertising as well. The idea 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 (was especially relevant during the Covid years).
• Some new social benefit.

The scammers' goal is to get the victim to either install a malicious app or enter their data on the website. For example, the victim is convinced that they are entitled to a benefit payment and that to receive it, they need to enter their card details, including CVV. Or to receive funds, they need to enter a code from an SMS.

This is a very dirty scheme because, as you can see, it is aimed at vulnerable groups of the population. Never fall for such dubious offers, and do not allow your relatives to do so.

7. Special offer for those interested in finance​

The victims of this scheme are subscribers of popular Telegram investment channels that allow comments.

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

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

If a popular author writes you a private message and offers you a good deal, then you are unlikely to have drawn 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 deal on Avito?​

In different variations of this scheme, the victim can be either the seller or the buyer. Most often, the fraudster tries to transfer the conversation from the Avito chat to third-party messengers, where he offers to conduct a safe transaction. Further options are possible when:

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

In fact, there are simply an incredible number of scammers hanging around Avito. It would probably take more than a day to list all the schemes that were and are practiced there. Be extremely careful when making deals on such sites.

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

When the victim of any, essentially, fraud schemes understands that their money has been stolen, they start to panic and frantically look for someone who could help return at least part of this money. And then the "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.

The victim in stress often goes to borrow money or scrapes 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 scumbags who "finish off the lying ones."

If you understand that you have become a victim of fraudsters, then the main thing is to stop panicking. Unfortunately, it is very likely that you will not be able to get your money back, 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 moved to Tinder and other dating apps, as well as social networks.

The victims of this scheme are most often lonely 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, communication without mentioning any financial interactions can continue for months. That is, for scammers, this is a long game.

And then, 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 on 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 scam from dating sites, the fraudster 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.

There is often one weak point in this scheme - 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 subjects, no matter how much you want to.

Unfortunately, the reality is that fraudsters are always one step ahead of law enforcement. Fraudsters first come up with a scheme and start using it, and only after that do law enforcement think of how to cover up this scheme.

Therefore, all we can do is use publicity.