Don't get caught: another fraud scheme — pensioners are promised recalculation of pensions

CrimeaPRESS reports:

Fraudsters continue to use pension deception strategies. They introduce themselves as employees of the Social Fund of Russia (SFR) and offer to recalculate pensions, citing unaccounted work experience.

Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, warned about the deception of older people.

Recently, cases of fraud have become more frequent in which attackers pose as employees of the Social Fund. They offer older representatives to recalculate their pensions, allegedly due to the fact that the entire length of service was not taken into account— said the deputy.

Next, the scammers invite pensioners to come for a consultation at the MFC or SFR, indicating the real addresses of the branches, he noted.

In order to gain the trust of the victim, attackers actively use personal data. They address themselves by name and patronymic, give their real address of residence, and in some cases indicate their previous places of work.Nemkin said.

To make an appointment at the MFC or the Social Fund, attackers ask to provide personal information, including passport data, SNILS, Taxpayer Identification Number, and a code from an SMS message. “All this information is necessary to gain access to citizens’ accounts on the State Services portal,” the deputy explained. In the future, they usually take out loans or microloans in the name of the victim.

Nemkin noted that information coming from strangers should always be treated carefully.

There are several signs of fraud. Firstly, attackers often pose as government officials. Government officials will never call citizens if they have not previously contacted them on their own regarding any issue. Secondly, attackers will ask you to hand over confidential information. No employee of either a commercial or government organization will ask you to provide document data over the phone. Finally, they will ask you for a code via SMS. It is required to bypass two-factor authentication and gain access to the service.— said the deputy.

According to the results of the second quarter of 2024, attackers stole about 4.8 billion rubles from the bank accounts of citizens and companies — a quarter higher than the average for the previous four quarters, the Bank of Russia previously reported.

Currently, current anti-fraud tools are being introduced in Russia. As part of the new national project “Data Economy,” a unified anti-fraud platform may appear by 2025, to which all financial organizations, banks and relevant authorities will be connected. In addition, in the near future the Bank of Russia, together with the Ministry of Digital Development, will begin work on creating a service for notifying citizens about the registration of loan obligations for them on the State Services portal. But I would like to emphasize that the most effective tool in combating fraud remains a critical perception of information. Therefore, it is simply necessary to double-check the received data, even if at the other end of the telephone you are in a great hurry to make a decision— Nemkin gave advice.

source: press service of Russian State Duma deputy Anton Nemkin

Crimea news | CrimeaPRESS: latest news and main events