Sevastopol Police: Beware of scammers when making online transactions!

CrimeaPRESS reports:

Most modern people are increasingly selling and buying various things using the Internet, however, despite the convenience of remote transactions, we should not forget that there is a risk of becoming a victim of fraudsters.

Recently, the desire to sell a wedding dress resulted in property damage for a 32-year-old local resident. The girl posted an ad on one of the websites offering to buy this wedding attribute from her. After some time, a prospective buyer contacted her via messenger, who, under the pretext of purchasing an item, asked her to go to the electronic link provided by him. Having complied with the stranger’s demand, she discovered that 25 thousand rubles had been debited from her bank account. Realizing that she had suffered from the actions of scammers, the victim contacted the Department of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Leninsky district— said the press service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Sevastopol.

Based on this fact, employees of the internal affairs bodies have opened a criminal case under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Fraud” and are taking all necessary measures aimed at identifying and searching for the criminals.

In order to prevent such crimes, Sevastopol police reminds, that when discussing a proposed purchase, you should communicate in chats within the platforms, without following links to third-party instant messengers and applications. Under no circumstances should you comply with requests from strangers to install any mobile applications on your smartphone and do not provide them with an SMS code or other confidential data.

Please note that online buyers often become victims of scammers. Therefore, when making remote purchases, it is recommended to use services to protect transactions within platforms, when the money paid is reserved in a secure account until the package is delivered. After confirming the quality of the goods to buyers, the funds are transferred to the seller. An offer to buy an expensive item at a reduced price, as well as a requirement to make an advance payment for a large amount at once should arouse your suspicion. If you purchase tickets to visit a theater via the Internet, then before transferring payment you must carefully read the name of its account. Let us note that there are cases when attackers created websites similar to cultural institutions, and misled citizens who wanted to attend a spectacular performance transferred funds to accounts controlled by the scammers.

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