To the attention of sellers: a new type of fraud on Slando (OLX). Transfer money to a bank card. Good to know: fraud schemes on OLX How it all started

How to protect yourself from unscrupulous sellers and buyers on the Internet? How to avoid becoming a victim of Internet scammers who trade on popular message boards such as OLX?

Over the past few months, several of my close friends have encountered scammers on the most popular message board on the Internet - OLX. Unfortunately, one of them suffered a loss of 100 hryvnia; the money was transferred to an unscrupulous seller, who never sent the goods to the buyer. As a result, a statement was written to the police indicating all the information collected about the seller.
During my monitoring of the fraud situation around this board, I was able to identify several main areas of activity of scammers. The so-called scammers choose their victims among people who are ready to make a purchase/sale with the goods sent to another region. The main types of fraud today:
Attempting to access the merchant's debit/credit card. It is no secret that almost all sellers are ready to send goods to other regions of Ukraine, while accepting payment via the Privat 24 system to their bank card. The scammer calls the seller, is interested in the product, can even bargain, sometimes asks for cash on delivery, but if the seller agrees, he changes his mind and offers to pay directly to the card. And here several options for this scam begin: the scammer says that he sent the money, but the seller must confirm the transfer, since the money was transferred to a private bank card from another payment system (Yandex money, WebMoney) or another bank. The seller is asked to drive up to an ATM, most often of Oschadbank or Privatbank, and under the pretext of confirming the transfer, the inattentive seller, instructed by phone by the fraudster, sends him all the money from his card.
Another variant of this fraud is a telephone call from an “employee” of Privatbank stating that a payment has been received to the seller’s account from a legal entity and its crediting must be confirmed/authorized using an SMS password, and after such confirmation the amount indicated in the message is debited from the seller’s account.
Fraudsters can also, under any pretext, ask the seller for the expiration date of his card and the CVV code located on the back of the card - remember, a bank employee will never be interested in this information!
An attempt to replace the goods upon receipt by cash on delivery. Fraudsters ask to send the parcel by cash on delivery (payment upon receipt of the purchase), but as you know, the recipient has the right to familiarize himself with the contents before paying for the parcel, and this is where an attempt to replace the contents occurs (for example, instead of a tablet, they can put the same tablet but not a working one, or replace the branded product with a cheap counterfeit). Despite the fact that a post office employee must be present when opening a package, fraudsters sometimes manage to replace the package.
Deception of buyers by unscrupulous sellers. Today, one of the most common types of fraud on OLX. The buyer finds the product he needs at an acceptable price, contacts the author of the ad, and the seller asks for either an advance payment or 100% prepayment before shipping. After receiving the money, the seller stops communicating, and after a while turns off the phone and deletes the account.
In some cases, the seller sends low-quality or defective goods, or may even send cash on delivery, knowing that the buyer will not be able to detect the defect by mail (computer components, various spare parts, etc.).
How to protect yourself from scammers on OLX and other similar Internet services?!
- First of all, check the information about the seller or buyer by entering his phone number, private bank card number (or other information known about him) into a search engine, preferably Google, and see if there are reviews about him on the Internet.
- Never tell anyone passwords or codes received as SMS messages to your phone.
- Never disclose the expiration date of your bank card or the code on the back of it.
- If you are asked to go to an ATM to confirm the transfer of money, these are scammers, under no circumstances follow their lead.
- If you are going to send an advance payment or the full amount for an item, before sending money to the seller, pay attention to the date of registration of the seller on the OLX service, most often scammers are registered on the service for no more than 2 - 3 months, but experienced scammers register accounts in advance for half a year - a year . Be sure to enter the seller’s phone numbers into the search engine. It happens that the ad contains one phone number, but the seller calls back from another. Enter telephone numbers and card numbers in different variations: 067-012-34-56, 0670123456, 067 012 34 56,
If this happens and you become a victim of scammers, you can write a statement to the police; in Ukraine there are quite a few cases of catching Internet scammers.
On our website we decided to create which we will update daily with contact information from open sources.

It’s bad that you are reading this article only after you have already been scammed or tried to scam you out of money with a transfer to a card. I personally encountered this scam, so I won’t describe anyone’s conjectures, I’ll describe everything factually, how they scam people over the phone and offer pay for the goods by transfer to an Oschadbank card.

If you know how to use ATMs, then you may not be able to be fooled, although I use them often, but for example, I had never encountered the Oschad system before, and I had no idea about transfers. So, read and learn from the mistakes of others.

Selling a phone on Slando, now Olx

It all started when my girlfriend and I decided to sell our old phone on the OLX service, which was already familiar to everyone. They added an ad, indicated the price, posted detailed photos, in general - everything was as it should be! A couple of days passed, a couple of messages came within the service with offers for a lower price, but I refused, saying that there would be buyers who would appreciate the product. That’s right, one fine day a guy called me and offered to buy a phone.

Divorce the smart way

At first I had no idea that they were trying to deceive me, since everything was definitely clear and simple. I'm selling a product, the buyer wants to buy it, right? That's what I thought too. The guy first called and said that he had no time, he was on business trips, moving from city to city, and now he simply did not have time to wait for the phone at Novaya Poshta. Before that, he asked all the details over the phone, in what condition, whether it was stolen (which later would turn out to be strangely funny, but understandable). And he summed it all up with approximately the following text:

Friend, let me transfer the money to your card, otherwise I don’t have time to wait for the goods to be delivered. I’m busy right now, I’m driving in the car, I’ll call you back in 15 minutes.

I thought, well, come on, what does it matter to me if you transfer your money, and the goods will be delivered as they are. But still, doubt crept in, how does a person want to pay for the goods, and at the same time did not even indicate where and how to deliver it? Well, okay, let's not bother with this for now.

15 minutes passed, this “Alyosha” calls, although you can call me more “Alyosha” in this case, and offers make a transfer to an Oschadbank card. I say - yes, I know the problems. But then he begins to “rub me in completely”:

— I make all my payments via the Internet, in order for the money to be transferred to you, we need your participation at the ATM so that you enter a confirmation.

What nonsense?– That was my first thought. Is this possible?– This is already the second thought. And the most interesting moment:

- Only you must have a positive balance on your account, otherwise it won’t work with a negative one.

This is also a vague statement, after which one could already think that something is wrong here. But alas, I didn’t think about it (probably, I really wanted to sell the phone), but it all seemed weird from the first minute. I started to explain to him that I have a card from Privat, and that it has a positive balance, but he didn’t like it, he said, I need Oschada.

– So I also have a positive balance on it, it was just recently completed.
- Well, ok, then we’ll call you near the ATM.

With this everything was decided. We got dressed, went to the ATM, inserted the card, I called him, he tells me the course of events and dictates all the actions, I naturally carry them out without hesitation, and it pops up to me that you don’t have enough funds. To which he answered me:

- well, in the meantime, since there is no money on the card, you need to have at least 100-500 hryvnia.

I say, okay, I’ll go and transfer it now. And at this time I have an epiphany, I begin to analyze every action taken and reproduce pictures in my brain monitor) The first thing I did at the ATM was click “transfer money”.

STOP! Why translate if I need to get? Then he dictated his card number, i.e. Even a logically thinking person would have already wondered why I clicked transfer and entered the recipient’s card number if I should receive the money, right? But at this time my logic was clearly lost. However, I wasn’t particularly worried, because I never store money on Bank cards, well, they don’t inspire confidence in me at all, and there are also such scammers who got divorced. In general, I realized that I was being completely scammed, I decided to call this “Vaska” and wish him a couple of affectionate wishes. Moreover, when you call, he is always on the other line, probably scamming others at this time. As soon as I asked him:

- Why am I transferring money to you, what kind of scam is this?

He simply disappeared from the activity zone. That’s it, and someone else in my place could lose his hard-earned money, at least 1000 UAH. So be careful and never turn off logic, even in situations and actions that are incomprehensible to you.

Note:

There is a post on OLX dated September 22 regarding this topic. Under this post there are already more than 400 comments from people who fell for the same scam, and everyone shares the names, phone numbers and cards of these attackers. This is not an isolated case!

p.s.: by the way, the phone was sold. There was a man from his own city who gladly and without any problems took it for his use for the specified price.

UPD 04/10/2016: my article attracted a lot of interest and I was not the only one who was tried to cheat out of money, I hope you read this information before your money fell into the hands of a swindler, leave your stories in the comments, reset the numbers of scammers in order to warn the same just like you and me.

UPD 08/20/2018: Since August 18, 2018, orders began to appear on the site, I don’t know who is doing this, although I fully guess that the owners of the site are OLX. My advice to you - STOP! I moderate all comments manually and still will not miss custom ones. You are only making things worse for yourself, take care of the site, not correcting the reputation outside your circles. For all readers, screenshots of comments not missed.

All of us, or almost all of us, have bought something online at least once in our lives. Many of us make purchases on bulletin boards “hand to hand”. I decided to collect in one article the types of fraud that are practiced by hunters for your wallet on the OLX website. The schemes are applicable to other resources of this kind. Therefore, the information will not be superfluous for almost any Internet user. After all, forewarned is forearmed, right? Read so you don't get scammed!

Scheme with two trusting sellers

Friends, we want to warn you against a new invention of scammers. Now they have learned to deceive with special cunning, attracting two gullible sellers/buyers at once, and they themselves “get away with it” from the fraudulent scheme. Read so you don't get scammed!

The crime scheme is as follows: the fraudster makes a deal with one of the buyers, and asks to transfer money to a bank card. At the same time, he indicates the card number of the other person from whom he is buying something. Thus, one victim transfers money to the card of the second, and the third party - the fraudster - receives the goods for which a third party paid.

The implementation of this crime may vary depending on the situation, but in the end, one person is left without money, accusing the other of fraud, while the real fraudster simply disappears.

Even more advanced scammers have even learned to steal SIM cards, using the service of mobile operators to restore a lost SIM card. To do this, they call the victim from three different numbers, and then at the operator’s office they call these three numbers, receiving a SIM card with the victim’s number, and then, knowing the phone number and bank card number, they withdraw money from ATMs using the “Emergency Money” service. . But this trick is only applicable to PrivatBank clients.

Fraudulent buyers and Oschadbank ATMs

Information about the increasingly common method of fraud using Oschadbank ATMs. We want to warn you so that you do not fall for the tricks of scammers!

The method is quite simple, and the scammer’s main task is to lure the victim to the ATM. Here's how it happens:

1. The scammer calls the phone number indicated in the ad, introducing himself potential buyer. At the same time, he has little or no interest in the product itself, but immediately declares his desire to make a purchase. Very often, a scammer pretends to be a representative of a company - for example, a wedding dress rental salon or a children's goods store.

2. Next, the “buyer” asks the seller to provide card details to transfer payment for the goods, often specifying the type of card, as well as the account balance. This should definitely alert you: think for yourself, why does the buyer need to know how much money is on your card if it’s not you who will pay, but he?

3. Then the scammer says that he will transfer the money, but to receive it you need to go to the Oschadbank ATM and follow the steps he says. When the seller approaches the ATM and inserts the card, the fraudster dictates his card number under the guise of a money transfer number and asks to enter the amount that should supposedly go to the seller's account. After the transaction is confirmed, the money ends up in the fraudster’s account.

As a rule, communication with such would-be buyers occurs in a hurry, they rush sellers, ask them to quickly run to the ATM and press the necessary buttons, otherwise “the money will not go through,” and use other methods of psychological pressure. We ask you to be vigilant and careful.

Fraudsters and PrivatBank cards

The crooks' operating principle remains the same - to force you to give them money, but their methods are constantly changing. We would like to warn you once again and tell you about the new invention of the villains!

The principle of deception is very simple - a fraudster, disguised as a buyer, calls, agrees to the transaction and asks to make a payment to a PrivatBank bank card. At the same time, in addition to the card number, he tries to find out additional information about the card owner. For example, validity period, availability of a credit limit, etc. Often the deceiver explains the need for this information by saying that payment will be made from a legal entity.

Do not under any circumstances disclose any information to anyone. except for the card number and full name.

In addition, the security service of a bank or any other company will never call you back to clarify additional information on the card. Only scammers do this.

If you receive an SMS with a code that the buyer asks you to provide so that his payment can go through, then you know that you are dealing with a scammer. This is a deceiver, knowing your card number, additional data and phone number, trying to carry out the “Emergency money” service.

But such deception schemes can be aimed not only at PrivatBank cardholders. Therefore, we ask you to be very careful when purchasing online.

Don't fall for scammers' tricks!

Free animals - a new way to cheat on the Internet

Attention all animal lovers! Ads have begun to appear on OLX in which expensive animals, under various pretexts, are offered absolutely free. And everything would be fine, but it’s just scammers who make up such offers!

The text of such advertisements is often written with various details and inspires confidence. Fraudsters even leave a phone number in their contacts where you can contact them and hear a convincing story about why the animal is given away for free.

There is just one problem - there is no possibility of a personal meeting to pick up the animal. Instead, scammers ask to pay for shipping or handling. The victim is offered to transfer a “symbolic” amount to a bank account or transfer money through international transfer systems.

Naturally, after the money is transferred, the scammers’ contact number will be disconnected, and the victim will be left without money and an animal.

Don't fall for the tricks. Never, under any persuasion, transfer money in advance!

Remember, if you do not have the opportunity to meet the seller in person, you can use the cash on delivery service - when you pay after receiving and checking the cargo. Many popular cargo carriers offer such opportunities.

Read:

Cars from abroad: popular deception schemes

Due to the fact that cases of fraud in the sale of cars have become more frequent, we have prepared for you descriptions of well-known “swindlers” and signs that can be used to identify false sellers. Read and don't fall for the tricks!

Considering the high prices for cars in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, scammers often hook people who want to buy a cheap car. The standard deception scheme is as follows: a tempting offer with a good car at a low price is posted on the bulletin board. A potential buyer contacts the seller and it turns out that he is located abroad. Then the process of gaining trust and luring out money begins.

It happens something like this: so that the victim does not guess about the deception, the fraudster comes up with a plausible legend, provides photographs or scans of documents and offers to transfer money through an intermediary company (car dealership, carrier company, bank, etc.).

Since fraudulent schemes are improving every day, there is no specific scenario. For example, a popular scheme now is when a seller from abroad offers to buy a car that has already been cleared through customs, which, however, due to a certain coincidence of circumstances is now located in another country.

Here is a fragment of a conversation with a scammer posing as a seller:

“The car is in perfect condition. I agree to all checks when I arrive. I can bring her to Ukraine in about 3-4 days if you want to buy, but I need a guarantee because I can't afford to make this trip in vain. My suggestion is this:

You send $1800 to Denmark via Western Union, for example, in the name of your relative (father, brother, cousin... even a friend), and then you send me a copy of the transfer by email.

When I arrive in Ukraine and I give you the car, we will go to the bank together and you will change your father’s name (for example) to my name, and when I return to Denmark I will receive money from the bank.

This transfer is not in my name, I cannot receive money from the bank until you check the car and change the recipient’s name.”

In fact, a fraudster will be able to obtain such a transfer. It will be enough for him to forge any identification card by entering the recipient’s first and last name. Western Union employees are not required to check documents for authenticity.

There may be a lot of similar answers, but they all boil down to one thing - you must pay a certain amount of the deposit.

Want to make sure it's a scam? Write to the seller that in just a couple of days you will be on a business trip in his country and you can drive up to him, look at the car and complete the deal on the spot. Most likely, the seller will disappear.

Read: Bus to Germany and Poland... any city for 30 euros: my low-cost route

Fraudsters “from the bank”: how to keep money on your card safe

Bank cards have now become a very popular payment method for goods purchased online. Unfortunately, this is not only used by buyers and sellers, but also by scammers. Here is the story of one of the users - and tips on how to protect your plastic card from intruders!

The first rule is never transfer your card data to third parties, no matter who they pretend to be. The card PIN code, secret codes, passport and registration details, as well as passwords that are sent to your mobile phone are strictly confidential. By transferring this data, you risk that you will give a stranger access to your card accounts!

Second rule - do not send SMS requests from your mobile phones, the purpose of which you are not 100% sure. This is especially true for SMS to short numbers.

Here is a story that happened to Valery, one of our users. He writes:
“I sell, for example, some goods via the Internet. A potential client calls and says that he is satisfied with everything, he wants to buy and is even ready to make a full prepayment to a Privatbank card.
I say ok and send him my card number. Then, after a while, a person calls me from a hidden number and introduces himself as an employee of Privatbank... In the turmoil of the workday, I don’t pay attention to what number he’s calling from, especially since it’s a hidden number, possibly a corporate one. That is, I believe him.
This pseudo-worker says that a certain person is trying to transfer a certain amount to my account. I say yes, I know. Then he says that I am supposedly not connected to the mobile banking system and in order to be able to transfer money to me, I need to be connected. I don’t know anything about mobile banking and I agree. Then this pseudo-employee asks with all sorts of tricky questions what Privatbank cards I still have, do I have a credit card, what is the limit, what is the debt, etc. Then he says, okay, I’ve connected you, now a message will be sent to the person who is sending you the money with a code to confirm the payment, he will send this code to you, and you will have to send it as is to the short number 10060 .
If I haven’t used mobile banking services before, then I don’t know what the code he sent me via SMS means. And I send this code to the number 10060. And people like me are most likely the majority, who, perhaps in the turmoil or out of ignorance, do not pay attention to the code being sent and thus lose money. Naturally, it was a code like SENDxxxVAL+[Last four digits]+CARD, where the last 4 digits of the card were the digits of my credit card, which they found out over the phone under the guise of a Privatbank employee, and the CARD card number was clearly their card number. The amount indicated in the code corresponds approximately to the credit limit that is still available to the victim, and which their pseudo-bank employee finds out beforehand.”.

Be careful! We hope this story doesn't happen to you again.

Read:

How to return stolen money from a bank card

The most common cases of fraud with bank cards lately are when the fraudster withdraws funds from the card after the user discloses confidential information. We strongly recommend that in no case - neither sellers nor buyers - disclose confidential data, not disclose SMS confirmation codes, and not perform any actions at the ATM at the request of strangers, even if they introduce themselves as bank employees. However, people continue to fall for the tricks. In some cases, stolen money can be returned.

Business analyst Anastasia Borisova shared her own experience of how she returned stolen money to a PrivatBank card. These recommendations will be useful to users of the LiqPay system.

“The situation is brief: scammers called under the guise of buying my products listed on OLX (SLANDO). They said that they would credit the money for the goods to the card. After which, “allegedly an employee of PrivatBank” carried out an operation to credit funds, and in fact - steal my funds - from my PrivatBank card.

The key point of this case is that the fraudulent operation of debiting funds from the card was carried out through the LiqPay service (www.liqpay.com)".

To log into your LiqPay system account, you must enter your phone number, as well as the code that comes via SMS. In addition to the card number and recipient's name, the victim reported this code, as well as her date of birth, to an alleged bank employee. Having received the code, the scammers gained access to the user's account and transferred money from her card to another account.

Attention: under no circumstances should you disclose SMS codes and personal information to anyone!

Today we will tell you about a new type of scam that is aimed primarily at SELLERS who sell their products on Slando (OLX) and similar message boards.

Auctions on Aukro are practically not affected by this method, because All Aucro participants undergo verification (a letter is sent to the postal address), in addition, there is a feedback system, and the phone number becomes available only after contacting the seller through the form, or after placing a bid/purchasing the lot.

Where it all started

It so happened that I needed to sell a brand new Samsung GALAXY Star Advance White smartphone and, as usual, I posted it on both Aucro and Slando (OLX) at the same time, because the seller is always interested in the fastest possible sale.

Just 5-10 minutes after adding to OLX - a call. The man introduced himself as Sergei ( Shapovalov Sergey Mikhailovich, mobile +38-095-441-48-74) from Zaporozhye, clarified the information by phone, agreed on payment by bank card.

Everything is as usual, but the “buyer” said that he would need to go to the Oschadbank ATM and confirm the transfer. Already at this stage, suspicions arise, what kind of confirmation, what kind of innovation?

Going to the ATM

Because The ATM was nearby, and on my way, out of curiosity I decided to go further and check what kind of “innovation” this is?

I call the “buyer” back, follow the instructions - it is suggested to insert the card into the ATM and go to the “card top-up” menu section - ahem... this is done so brazenly that many may not suspect a trick. Especially those who poorly “understand” the ATM, usually these are older people.

Because We have only 39 UAH on the card. (there is nothing to risk), insert the card, go to the “replenish the card” section and there the “buyer” dictates to us the “confirmation code” 5104 7700 1043 0694, then you need to enter the amount of 500 for the “test”, will the payment go through - do you still believe?

Here we are warned that a commission of 10 UAH will be charged, and that the “confirmation code” must be entered quickly within 1 minute. And naturally, in all this confusion, you will not pay attention to the fact that you enter the “confirmation code” in the “Payment recipient / card for replenishment” field, the amount of 500 is the amount that will be debited from your card. 5104 7700 1043 0694 - card number, this is obvious.

Updated June 04, 2016: divorce with transfer to a PrivatBank card from a legal entity account

Dear friends! I would like to draw your attention to another subtype of this scam.

The other day, a certain Alexander Melnikov (mobile +38-094-921-09-82 / 0948210982) called about one of the lots on OLX and offered to make a partial prepayment, provided that I would drop the price for him.

After this, Alexander asked for the PrivatBank card number where the money should be transferred and the owner’s full name. If you have ever made a purchase on Aukro, you know that large sellers always indicate the card number and full name, the latter is needed in order to check the correctness of the number when making a payment through a bank terminal.

The lot allegedly needed to be sent to Vinnitsa, to the first warehouse of the New Post Office. At the same time, Alexander said that the money would be transferred from a legal entity (from the company’s account).

A day later, a call came from the number +38-056-785-85-68 (0567858568), the caller addressed himself by his first name and patronymic (after all, he had his full name in advance) and introduced himself as an employee of PrivatBank named Vitaly. The pseudo-employee reported that a payment had been received on the card from a legal entity and it needed to be confirmed. The attacker was exposed and then hung up.

If the attacker managed to gain trust, the next option would involve transferring funds from one card to another. In this case, the attacker will need additional card details - expiration date and CVV, as well as a confirmation code.

How to avoid becoming a victim of a scammer?

• Do not, under any circumstances, disclose additional card details to anyone: expiration date and CVV code on the back of the card. This data is confidential and allows you to make transfers and payments via the Internet.
• Do not, under any circumstances, disclose the confirmation codes and access codes received via SMS from the Bank to anyone.
• Always carefully read SMS messages received from the Bank: type of transaction, amount, from where and where the transfer is made.
• Pay attention to suspicious Bank numbers, for example, if the Bank suddenly changed the number, the SMS came from a different number, and so on.
• Activate the full SMS notification service about transactions on your account: receipts, expenses, etc.
• Enable two-step authorization in Internet banking so that you can log into the system only with your username, password and mobile phone at hand.
• If you have any questions, please contact the bank directly, or call the Bank’s hotline at the number listed on the Bank’s website.
  Be careful, divorce is always aimed at loyalty and surprise.

How do you like this divorce?

Judging by the confidence of the “buyer,” this is far from his first “purchase.” Be careful!

As my friend likes to state, now is such a time. that you need to be on guard all the time. You just relaxed at the market, in a store or in a bank - and then you were deceived! What can we say about virtual reality, which is literally teeming with scammers?

It is not surprising that all kinds of “black lists” are now quite popular on the Internet, with the help of which you can identify a fraudster by first and last name, phone number, card number, or social network account. But such a calculation does not provide a 100% guarantee: first and last names are very common, phone numbers and accounts can be easily changed, and scammers have not one, but several bank cards. Moreover, apparently, their ranks are constantly replenished.

Schemes from "sellers"

Recently, I have heard several stories from friends about fraud related to the popular online message board OLX. Judging by these stories, scammers operate in several main directions.

1.Prepayment – ​​and goodbye!

The scheme is as old as time. Before sending the goods by mail, the seller asks for either an advance payment or a 100% prepayment and after receiving the money disappears forever: he stops communicating, turns off his phone, and deletes his account.

2. Defect in the parcel

The buyer is sent a low-quality or defective product. By the way, cash on delivery is also possible if the fraudulent seller is confident that the buyer will not be able to detect defects in the mail (spare parts, components, etc.).

Schemes from "buyers"

It must be said that scammers operate on both sides of the fence, so they can act as both sellers and buyers.

So, popular schemes from pseudo-buyers:

1. "Transfer confirmation"

It is no secret that almost all sellers do not mind sending goods to other regions of the country, having first received payment on their card. The fraudster calls the seller, inquires about the product, maybe even bargains, and then agrees to send money to the card. The scam can go in several directions: the scammer says that he sent the money, but the seller must confirm the transfer, since the money was sent from another payment system. For example, to a Privat card from WebMoney, etc. The seller is asked to drive to the ATM and given detailed instructions on what to do. As a result, under the pretext of confirming the transfer, an inattentive seller, instructed in real time by the fraudster, sends him all the money from his card.

2. Phone call from a bank “employee”

The seller receives a call supposedly from a bank employee, who reports: a payment has been received into the seller’s account from a legal entity, and its crediting must be allowed using an SMS password. However, after such confirmation it turns out that the amount indicated in the SMS was not credited, but debited from the seller’s account.

3. CVV code

Under any of the above or other pretexts, fraudsters may ask the seller to provide information about the expiration date of the card and the CVV code. Well, then it’s a matter of technique: the fraudster can already pay with your card on the Internet.

4. Substitution of goods at the post office

The fraudulent buyer asks to send the parcel by cash on delivery (that is, the goods are paid for upon receipt of the purchase). The scheme is based on the fact that when receiving a parcel by cash on delivery, the recipient has the right to review the contents before paying for the parcel. Of course, a post office employee must be present when the package is opened, but it is quite possible to distract him. And then the scammer replaces the contents - for example, instead of a phone or tablet, he puts the same one in the parcel, but it is not working, and then refuses to receive it, saying that the goods did not fit.

How to protect yourself from scammers

Psychologists say. that divorce most often rests on the “three pillars”: surprise, loyalty and tact. Therefore, be careful!

And the “safety” rules are general and apply equally to both potential sellers and potential buyers:

• Check the seller or buyer information. The simplest thing is to enter the information you have (last name, phone number, card number) into a search engine and check if there are reviews about it on the Internet.
• Never tell anyone passwords or codes sent to your number in the form of SMS messages.
• Do not tell anyone additional card details: its expiration date and the code on the back.
• If you are asked to go to an ATM to confirm the deposit of money, rest assured: you are talking to scammers!
• If you have any questions, do not discuss them with the person calling you, but call the financial institution’s hotline yourself at the phone number listed on the bank’s official website.
• Before sending an advance payment for the goods, pay attention to the date of registration of the seller on the site. If it has been registered for no more than a couple of months, and even more so, a couple of weeks, this is a reason to be wary.
• Please note that the ad may indicate one phone number, but they call you back from another. In this case, it makes sense to “punch” both numbers through search engines.
• If you nevertheless become a victim of scammers, write a statement to the police.