Yekaterinburg pensioner loses millions in phone scam

In Yekaterinburg, a pensioner lost all her savings after a call from a fake Russian Post employee.

The 65-year-old woman answered a call from a fraudster who claimed to be planning to deliver a parcel to her. To do so, she needed to provide a code that arrived via SMS. Then the criminals followed a familiar scheme.

«The victim was told about an alleged hack of her personal account on the Gosuslugi (government services) portal and a leak of her personal data. Then the callers, who pretended to be employees of the »Security Service« and »Rosfinmonitoring« (the Federal Financial Monitoring Service), convinced her to put her savings of 4.8 million rubles (about $48,000 at current rates) and 20,000 euros (about $21,600 at current rates) in a bag and hand it over to a courier at a prearranged address,» the police added.

The pensioner cashed out the rest of her savings at banks and transferred the money to «safe accounts.»

The police also reported that just this week, over 24 million rubles (about $240,000 at current rates) were stolen from Yekaterinburg residents. Employees remind that fraudsters are constantly coming up with new schemes. To avoid becoming their victim, one should follow the guidelines:

1. Do not talk to strangers on the phone.

2. Do not disclose any personal data or codes to outsiders.

3. Do not transfer or hand over money to unknown persons.

4. Double-check all information you receive by phone personally.

Earlier we wrote about how a doctor from Yekaterinburg met a girl on a dating site and lost a million rubles. Everything about how fraudsters deceive Urals residents we tell in a special section.