The woman lost 220,000 euros due to financial scammers
Since the beginning of this year, criminals managed to lure from the inhabitants of Estonia more than 3.4 million euros. Bank scammers are especially actively operating – compared to last year, the number of cases increased by 80%, and the amount lost by victims is more than doubled – almost 1.6 million euros. One of the victims of investment fraud has lost a total of about 220,000 euros.
Viktor Tkachenko, head of the money laundering department of money laundering, noted that the inhabitants of Estonia are still under strong pressure from scammers, and therefore informing and warning people remains extremely important: “Elderly people and the Russian -speaking population are especially vulnerable, since most of the calls from scammers are made in Russian. Be sure to talk about this with your parents or grandparents. ”
In early May, the Police and Border Guard (PPA) department began to publish various cases of financial fraud on his Facebook page, which they were informed in order to attract more attention to the problem. There you can find many examples of tricks that scammers resort to. In particular, a case was given when a 46-year-old woman lost as many as 220,000 euros. “This case clearly shows that not only elderly people become victims of scammers,” Tkachenko noted.
According to the description of the incident, a 46-year-old resident of Viimsey met on Facebook with a fraudster who, after three months of communication, transferred a conversation on the topic of earnings on the exchange. The fraudster recommended a broker who allegedly was ready to help a woman with investments. Then an account was created on the CGL-limited.net trading platform and the first fee was made. Under the influence of scammers, the woman took loans from acquaintances and relatives and transferred money to the platform. Now she cannot withdraw funds from the platform, and additional payments are required from it. The total damage from fraud amounted to 220,000 euros.
Tkachenko emphasized that it is necessary to remember and remind his elderly relatives: bank employees or any other officials never ask for PIN codes from bank accounts and do not ask them to send them. Also, an obvious sign of fraud is the requirement to transfer money in cash, for example, through a courier. “When performing any dubious operations, you can always directly ask for help in your bank. The bank will not condemn for caution if the client wants to clarify whether they really called it, ”Tkachenko said.
Multisting fraud schemes are increasingly taking place, when the representative of the mobile operator supposedly calls first and convinces that the contract needs to be updated, and this requires confirm the personality with PIN code. Sometimes fraudsters say that an Omniva office supposedly came a parcel or custom letter, and ask to name a personal code. There are also cases when they call under the pretext of replacing the electric meter and ask to introduce PIN codes to perform the necessary actions. After the initial contact was established with the victim and her personal data or PIN codes were obtained, scammers allegedly report on behalf of the bank that suspicious operations are taking place on her account or they want to issue a loan in her name. For safety reasons, the victim is offered to transfer money to a “safe” account. Sometimes they offer the victim to transfer bank cards or cash to the courier, which will allegedly deliver them to a “reliable place”.
According to the police and border guard department, last year in Estonia as a result of various types of financial fraud, 8.8 million euros were exhausted by citizens.
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