Fraudsters find a new way to extort money from people: How to avoid it?

Fraudsters have found a new way to deceive people: they started making video calls to potential victims through messengers, so that they would not have any doubts that they are being deceived, Russian newspaper Izvestia reports.

Nikita Chugunov, senior vice president of the Russian VTB Bank, said that criminals call citizens and pose as bank employees, and if the interlocutor does not believe them, they make a second call, but already through a video call and create the impression that it is from the bank's service office that they are calling.

Once the recipient of the call has no doubt that the caller is indeed a bank employee, the scammers convince them to apply for a loan, change a trusted phone number, transfer money to a "secure account," update their banking app, or download remote access tools to verify its functionality. As a result, under various pretexts, they extract the SMS code verifying the transaction from the victim, which is received on the victim's phone number, and already get full control over his personal user account.

According to Chugunov, today messengers have become the main platform for fraudsters: the share of fraudulent calls has increased since the beginning of the year and reached 64%, surpassing telephone attacks. In addition to personal information, criminals can also use customers' photos and videos, he warned.

How to avoid becoming a victim of scammers?

Under no circumstances should personal and financial data, including bank card data, secret codes received via SMS be given to strangers, regardless of who they are. Remember that the bank employee will never call you with a video call, nor will they ask for an SMS code verifying any transaction. If you have been called in any case, do not continue the conversation, instead call the contact numbers listed on your bank's website or go to the bank in person.

In an interview with Ura.Ru, information security specialist Oleg Sedov advises to reduce the number of such calls or even get rid of them, to have two phone numbers: one for work matters, and the second exclusively for online purchases.

According to him, the practice of having a "clean" phone number is justified, because no one will bother you except for business and personal affairs. However, this method won't protect you from scammers if your mobile operator's database is leaked and your phone number ends up on the network or in the hands of some people. In addition, it is not very effective, considering that there are bots that call random phone numbers to check if it is being used.

"There are cases when you get a call, you pick up the phone, but no one speaks. It's just a test to see if the given phone number is in use. Then it is included in the database of phone numbers that can be called purposefully," the expert explained.

Last year Visa conducted a payment security campaign in Armenia to educate the local population in the field of financial literacy, raise the awareness of Visa consumers about the need for better protection of personal data, and identify cases of fraud and social engineering fraud. The campaign also launched an interactive online game to raise awareness about different types of fraud and how to spot them.