Russians were warned about a fraud scheme similar to MMM on social networks
In September, specialists from the Center for Digital Expertise of Roskachestvo discovered a new scheme for taking money from social network users. Lenta.ru was informed about this by the organization’s press service.
New scheme
Roskachestvo noted that the attackers operate through Instagram (banned in the Russian Federation; owned by the Meta corporation, which is recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation). They post in news feeds and stories about “free” money. They offer the victim to transfer money from a fake account, which will be returned twice as much.
“In his profile, he (the fraudster – Lenta.ru’s note) posts words of gratitude from users who trusted him and thus earned money. Moreover, the organizers ask you to be sure to subscribe to the page, like and write comments under all publications. All this is needed to quickly promote the page and attract new users and potential victims,” the organization said.
At first, the scammers actually return the money. Their goal is to attract a large investor or achieve mass transfers. After that, they suddenly stop communicating. For this reason, everyone’s payments are small, and there are no examples of larger earnings.
Analog MMM
“The divorce scenario is tritely simple – the same “MMM”, a financial pyramid cleverly organized by Sergei Mavrodi in the 90s, is read between the lines. People send money, which the organizers supposedly will increase through investments. Some of the screenshots with translations are, of course, fake and are designed to attract completely naive citizens. It does not happen that the amount transferred yesterday will be returned the next day with double the investment. Often, scammers don’t even need to have start-up capital. Each new victim pays for the “profit” of the previous victim, and so on,” said Sergei Bodrov, head of the Roskachestvo Center for Digital Expertise.
If you have a profile on social networks and a bank card, be vigilant. Remember that if an offer seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t.
Roskachestvo specialists noted that the scammers are vague about how the scheme works. They write about “traders”, “investments”, “crypto”, and sometimes they note that they themselves do not know the methodology. Attackers also make many spelling mistakes.
Earlier, Russians were told about a new scheme for deception in instant messengers. Fraudsters pose as heads of organizations where victims work, and thus try to lure money.
Source: Rambler
