Money withdrawn from Wildberries buyers’ cards in Russia under name of fraudulent purchases

Users of the services of the Internet trading company Wildberries are facing fraudulent schemes in Russia; money is withdrawn from their bank cards and current accounts under the name of fake purchases in the market, Russian daily Izvestia reports.

A person who became a victim of such a fraud scheme lost 195,000 rubles. The criminals withdrew the money from her bank card through many small transactions.

What actually happened?

According to the newspaper, the victim woman said that she has not shopped since this August, but one day she noticed that 1,000 rubles were being charged from her card every minute and transferred to the account of a fictitious seller named wildberries Podol'sk.

Then the woman contacted her bank and blocked the card. The bank said that the transactions were confirmed, although the victim claimed that she did not confirm any transaction.

The Wildberries support service was also unable to help the victim in this situation. The woman said that she saw another user complaining about the same problem in the general seller chat.

 “I had to use my connections to get some answers. A girl from the market answered me that such situations happen. Fraudsters, who get access to the card and then start withdrawing money, are allegedly to blame for everything. The problem can be solved only through the police, the market is not liable," added the victim.

The source of the newspaper assumed that the woman had become the victim of fraudsters. They stole the woman's bank card details, attached the card to her Wildberries account, and made false payments to another company whose name gave the impression that it was a marketplace.

Wildberries does not believe what the victim says

Wildberries, for its part, stated that it does not believe what the victim said, noting that everything indicates that the transaction was authorized by the given user.

"It is not true that Wildberries users have experienced fraudulent activities. We have conducted an internal inspection; the user's bank card was attached using the 3D-Secure system and SMS message confirmation method. Thus, according to our data, the transaction was authorized by the user," the company stated.

There are other complaints about Wildberries

Recently, Wildberries often appear in the focus of scandals. On October 24th, sellers through this service announced that they were unable to withdraw money from the platform due to the new instant withdrawal service. In the same month, Wildberries, citing customer demand, tripled the non-refundable "guarantee fee"—to up to 30,000 rubles—charged to new sellers. In addition, sellers complain that the company can fine them without detailing the reasons for the fine.

Another cause of discontent was the introduction of a commission of 1,000 rubles for the return of large goods. Also, in June, Wildberries sellers began to report that money was being deducted from their accounts when writing off the debts of other legal entities. It was found that it is about "debt transfer" from the third party taxpayer registration number (TRN) to the seller's TRN. One seller lost 1 million rubles as a result of such a transaction. Other persons also reported losses of hundreds of thousands of rubles.