According to Izvestia, scammers have started using a new deception scheme since the beginning of this year. They lure Russians into fake investment projects. Moreover, at the first stages, users are paid small cash rewards to bank cards. By this action, fake resources dull the vigilance of the victims and extract large sums of money from them.
Representatives of several banks, including Post Bank, BBR Bank, Otkritie and VTB, as well as investment companies Mosbirzha and the BCS broker, said that many fake sites have appeared on the network that completely copy well-known investment sites. In addition to registering and accepting money to an internal brokerage account, there are also, at first, reverse payments to their bank account for the fact that they have successfully invested or as a bonus.
The entry threshold for such resources is very low. With the help of rumors, advertisements between other users and social media posts, new victims are constantly getting to these sites. They think that this is a real platform where everything is legal. Clients see that their first investment of 3-5 thousand rubles is returned at the level of 10-15 thousand rubles. They start investing more in this fake, and when they run out of their money, they take out loans for the sake of what they think are high-yield investments.
Market experts explained that since the beginning of 2021, there has been a sharp boom in individual clients on official investment platforms. In 2022, there were already more than 17 million people, and at the beginning of last year there were 9.4 million users. Some of these clients, as well as their acquaintances, friends and relatives become victims of a new fraud scheme.
The market regulator said that fraudsters began to increasingly use the financial pyramid scheme under the guise of investment assistance and pseudo-trust management services. In fact, all the transfers of the victims are not invested anywhere and remain on the accounts of swindlers who, through fraud and trusting small payments, continue to empty the client’s account and do not stop until the client goes into debt with banks or microfinance organizations. Then they allegedly make an unsuccessful investment, the brokerage account is reset to zero, and the victim cannot do anything about it, since the withdrawal of money on the site becomes blocked, as well as the user's account.
The publication's experts warned that you should always check the investment platform before registering in it and starting financial services. It must be licensed by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, work with well-known partners - Russian banks and investment sites, and also have good customer reviews, including publications on third-party forums and portals. Such a project should have one site without clones and without a complex or incorrect name. The technical support of such a site should respond quickly, adequately and not have contacts on free mailboxes.
Market representatives are aware of the new scheme, but they cannot quickly block such sites. A few days after the closure of one site, two or three identical ones appear. For scammers, this process is automated with the help of special tools and bots that extract money from customers.
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