Sevastopol police: fraudsters can also act under the guise of mobile operators!

Fraudsters call citizens and, posing as mobile operators, inform them of the need to renew their service agreement, for which they ask for the received SMS code. After this, the accomplices of the telephone fraudster call and, posing as representatives of the public services portal, bank employees or law enforcement officers, say that the previously reported confidential data has been obtained by criminals who use it to steal savings or obtain loans. Under the pretext of «preventing the write-off of money» or «preventing the conclusion of a fictitious loan agreement», the criminals convince them to transfer all funds to the details they specify, which they call «safe» or «reserve» accounts.— the press service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Sevastopol noted.

In one such case, telephone scammers staged a whole criminal show for a 62-year-old local resident. By making calls to the pensioner supposedly to provide mobile phone services and subsequently threatening to impose a debt under a forged agreement, the scammers convinced the man to transfer 200 thousand rubles to accounts under their control. Having lost his savings and realizing that he had been deceived, the victim contacted the OMVD of Russia for the Leninsky District. Based on this fact, employees of the internal affairs bodies opened a criminal case under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation «Fraud» and are taking all necessary measures aimed at solving the crime.

In order to prevent this type of theft, the Sevastopol police warns that real mobile operators, employees of government portals and banks, employees of special services and law enforcement agencies never ask for an SMS code over the phone, and even more so, do not require any money transfers under the pretext of preventing the write-off of money or preventing illegal lending. Remember that only fraudsters who want to steal your savings make the above-described demands.

Despite the fact that criminals may use the logo of the relevant institution, address you by your first name and patronymic, send a scanned copy of a fake ID, and use banking and law enforcement terminology, when receiving the above-described calls, you must remain calm and reasonable. In order not to be subject to psychological manipulation by fraudsters, in such a situation you should immediately interrupt the conversation with the stranger and call the police at 102, where messages from citizens are accepted around the clock.

source: press service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Sevastopol