New method of fraud: How do scammers mislead people and steal their money?

Fraudsters have invented another way of extorting financial resources on the territory of Russia through the Internet, reports the Russian TASS agency in a joint article with the Federal Chamber of Notaries.

Today, one of the most common methods of fraud remains the so-called notarial fictitious powers of attorney. And what is that?

The scammers make up a legend that the citizen's documents have fallen into the hands of unknown criminals, who will be able to withdraw all the money from the citizen's accounts or sell his apartment.

"In order to save the property, the victim is advised to go ahead of them, to sell the house and the proceeds on his own, as well as to transfer all his savings to some kind of 'safe account,'" the study says.

Phone calls, as well as QR codes and electronic signatures that invite users to go to fake websites or participate in an online property sale, which is actually a fraudulent scheme, continue to be popular extortion methods.

Earlier, NEWS.am Tech informed about a new form of fraud, in the framework of which fraudsters steal money by convincing the victim to turn on the smartphone's screen broadcasting function during a video call. First, the fraudster calls the potential victim, posing as a bank employee, and asks if they have recently updated their mobile banking app. In case of a negative answer, he says that another specialist will call him soon and help update the application.

The other scammer makes a video call, allegedly to identify him, then asks the victim to turn on screencast mode in order to "activate the robotic system to diagnose the account." The scammer then asks the victim to access the bank's mobile app, claiming it's completely secure because only a robot will see the screen.

However, the actual screencast allows the fraudster to see the bank card number, the amount of money in the account and the SMS codes received from the bank. All this information allows you to access a customer's personal account and steal their money or convince them to transfer their funds to a "secure account".