In the first half of 2024, 9,341 fraudulent resources and 3,621 phishing websites were blocked in Russia, which aimed to deceive users of one of the popular Russian online trading platforms, Gazeta.Ru reports, citing a joint study by F.A.C.C.T.

The main types of fraud have become Internet scams with fake contests, so-called scam resources, and phishing pages for identification, purchase of products or their return. Advertising in messengers and social networks has become the main means of promoting fraudulent websites.

According to F.A.C.C.T.'s analysts, the main sources of attracting the audience of scammers and phishing resources were groups and user accounts in messengers and social networks. In the first half of 2024, 1,632 posts and groups were blocked, which is almost 7 times more than those blocked in all of 2023.

How to avoid scams?

Experts recommend following basic digital literacy rules to make shopping online safe. They advise not to open links sent by strangers in messengers or e-mails and to always pay attention to the sender's address.

Online trading platforms do not organize closed sales or discount sweepstakes and do not send links in private messages to pay for products. In addition, one should be careful with job offers with extremely high income.

In order to make a safe purchase, it is recommended that you research the website address, search for it online and check when it was created before entering your bank card details. You can make secure purchases through the official app, which can be downloaded from the mobile app store.

You should also be careful not to give out personal information, including address, phone number, passwords, one-time codes and any other data, to strangers, even if the interlocutor poses as a customer service specialist or market seller.

If you suspect that you are dealing with a fake site, you can write to the platform's support service in the app's chat or on the website, where specialists will help understand the situation.