Scammers impersonate HOA chairmen to steal money
Fraudsters use deception to convince people to transfer money to accounts they control under false pretenses.
Scammers have started using a deception scheme where they ask Russians to disable the home fire safety system. This is reported by TASS citing data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
According to the department, the criminals use the Telegram messenger to send messages with the corresponding request allegedly on behalf of the HOA chairman.
“For this, scammers send a link to a bot to the potential victim. Without suspecting a trick, the person logs in using their phone number, and forwards the received code to an account named ‘HOA chairman’,” according to the materials.
Then the potential victim receives a message that they have been sent a code from the Gosuslugi (government services portal) and that these are scammers who will now take out a loan in their name. After some time, supposed operators from Gosuslugi join the scheme, extracting personal data—passport, SNILS (pension insurance number), INN (tax identification number), and then come “representatives of Roskomnadzor (the communications regulator) and law enforcement.”
In the end, scammers convince Russians to transfer money to a “safe account” or hand it over to a courier, the department noted.
There are numerous fraudulent schemes. Criminals study social networks to manipulate children, pretend to be school psychologists or representatives of admissions committees. In any case, their ultimate goal is to seize your personal data and money.
