In the first four months of this year, fraudsters swindled a total of 7.081 million euros from customers of the four largest Latvian banks, which is 2.1 times more than in the first four months of 2023, according to published data from the Financial Industry Association.
In total, 5,646 fraud cases were prevented in the first four months of this year, totaling 4,292 million euros.
During this period, 2,104 cases of telephone fraud in the amount of EUR 4,546,462 were detected in Latvian banks. In addition, 1,135 cases of investment fraud in the amount of 1,904,998 euros and 308 cases of other types of fraud in the amount of 630,027 euros were identified.
Compared to 2023, the number of cases of telephone fraud has tripled, and the amount of money stolen has increased 3.6 times.
The number of investment fraud cases increased by 12.4 % and the amount increased by 19.7 %. Other types of fraud decreased by 11 % and the amount of fraud increased by 7.4 %.
At the same time, in the first four months of 2024, 1,850 attempts of telephone fraud in the amount of 1,678,481 euros, 3,485 attempts of investment fraud in the amount of 2,315,357 euros and another 311 cases of other types of fraud in the amount of 297,936 euros were prevented.
Representatives of the Financial Industry Association note that despite warnings about financial fraud schemes, people continue to fall for the bait. Especially active and dangerous are telephone scammers who fraudulently extorted 4.5 million euros from Latvian residents, so residents should remain vigilant and critical of every call and requests to share personal information, since if people voluntarily provided their data to scammers or invested in fictitious schemes, there is little chance to prevent money from leaking from their accounts.
The association emphasizes that most often scammers rush people, saying that this is very important, trying to cause a sense of anxiety and fear in a potential victim, deceiving that in case of inaction a person can lose all the money, although in reality the scammers are the callers themselves.
Among the types of deception, there are messages about allegedly received parcels, calls allegedly from the State Revenue Service, the police or the security service of an institution.
Potential victims are invited to participate, for example, in a fraud investigation that asks them to transfer money allegedly for safe storage.
People are told that they must participate in investigations to catch criminals or protect their money.
It is also reported that fraudsters not only convince victims to transfer money to their bank accounts, but also take advantage of cases when people approve an authentication request without checking what purposes it is being requested for and it turns out that a loan was taken out at their expense or goods were purchased in installments.
Before entering the PIN code in the authentication tools, it is important to know what action will be performed. This information is indicated, but often users don't pay much attention to it.
In total, 5,646 fraud cases were prevented in the first four months of this year, totaling 4,292 million euros.
During this period, 2,104 cases of telephone fraud in the amount of EUR 4,546,462 were detected in Latvian banks. In addition, 1,135 cases of investment fraud in the amount of 1,904,998 euros and 308 cases of other types of fraud in the amount of 630,027 euros were identified.
Compared to 2023, the number of cases of telephone fraud has tripled, and the amount of money stolen has increased 3.6 times.
The number of investment fraud cases increased by 12.4 % and the amount increased by 19.7 %. Other types of fraud decreased by 11 % and the amount of fraud increased by 7.4 %.
At the same time, in the first four months of 2024, 1,850 attempts of telephone fraud in the amount of 1,678,481 euros, 3,485 attempts of investment fraud in the amount of 2,315,357 euros and another 311 cases of other types of fraud in the amount of 297,936 euros were prevented.
Representatives of the Financial Industry Association note that despite warnings about financial fraud schemes, people continue to fall for the bait. Especially active and dangerous are telephone scammers who fraudulently extorted 4.5 million euros from Latvian residents, so residents should remain vigilant and critical of every call and requests to share personal information, since if people voluntarily provided their data to scammers or invested in fictitious schemes, there is little chance to prevent money from leaking from their accounts.
The association emphasizes that most often scammers rush people, saying that this is very important, trying to cause a sense of anxiety and fear in a potential victim, deceiving that in case of inaction a person can lose all the money, although in reality the scammers are the callers themselves.
Among the types of deception, there are messages about allegedly received parcels, calls allegedly from the State Revenue Service, the police or the security service of an institution.
Potential victims are invited to participate, for example, in a fraud investigation that asks them to transfer money allegedly for safe storage.
People are told that they must participate in investigations to catch criminals or protect their money.
It is also reported that fraudsters not only convince victims to transfer money to their bank accounts, but also take advantage of cases when people approve an authentication request without checking what purposes it is being requested for and it turns out that a loan was taken out at their expense or goods were purchased in installments.
Before entering the PIN code in the authentication tools, it is important to know what action will be performed. This information is indicated, but often users don't pay much attention to it.
