Izvestia: scammers offer pensioners a subscription to services at inflated prices
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Fraudsters have come up with a new scheme to deceive Russian pensioners. They offer them a subscription to regular services – such as repairing windows, appliances, or batteries – at inflated prices. This is reported by Izvestia.
Under the guise of craftsmen, swindlers regularly visit their victims, and the cost of their work can exceed hundreds of thousands. The publication notes that in one of the cases the estimate was 412 thousand rubles.
Often, attackers disguise themselves as consonant names of already existing firms. The specialists of real companies are aware of this problem and process negative reviews on the Internet, check for compliance in order to preserve their own reputation. In fact, scammers provide services on behalf of fly-by-night firms.
Izvestia explains that often the swindlers themselves disable certain elements in the apartment, for example, window handles or rotary mechanisms under the guise of diagnostics, show scary footage of children falling out of the window and warn that the client may have the same situation , after which they are persuaded for urgent repairs for a lot of money.
Honest craftsmen come to such firms who are looking for work, but after a few days they understand what is happening. Those who want to make money at any cost remain, the rest leave the dubious office.
One of the favorite occupations of scammers is window maintenance, but there is also a “subscription service” for batteries, household appliances, fire extinguishing systems, and gas meters. Also, victims are deceived in meaningless legal services, in this area it is especially easy to turn a scam with a person who does not understand the issue, experts say.
Banks are also concerned about the growth in the number of scams. “When funds are withdrawn from bank branches, a message is displayed to the employee at the workplace about the risks of social engineering. They need to be voiced to the client. After the dialogue, the client decides whether to carry out the operation or not, ”explained Elena Levina, director of the Customer Care division of Sberbank.
Earlier, the Russians were warned that the information they leave on social networks could be used by scammers. The experts emphasized that attackers are improving their scams and actively monitoring the personal pages of potential victims. This allows criminals to apply a customized fraud scenario tailored to a specific person.
