How scammers deceive online buyers and sellers

Following the growing popularity of online shopping, cases of fraud in such transactions have become more frequent in Russia, reports Kaspersky Lab. Fraudsters pose as bank employees, send fake links to pay for goods, and extract card details. Avito experts explained what rules must be followed to make online purchases safely.

Photo: Pixel-Shot/shutterstock

One of the important results of self-isolation for the Russian e-commerce market was the influx of new customers into online shopping: people who had not previously made purchases on the Internet or did so infrequently.

According to the analytical agency Data Insight, 3 months of quarantine led at least 10 million people to online shopping. Against this background, the number of attempts to deceive customers online has also increased. In the summer of 2021, experts discovered hundreds of new phishing sites masquerading as popular services for the sale and delivery of goods and services.

Avoiding fraud on the Internet is quite simple: just strictly follow the key security rules - do not follow external links that other users may send, do not share payment card details with anyone (CVV/CVC code and codes from SMS messages from the bank ), do not make an advance payment.

“In most cases of online fraud, users independently and voluntarily provide scammers with personal data that allows them to commit theft or make an advance payment. Fraudsters use very similar schemes over and over again on different resources, and when they manage to succeed and steal other people’s money, the reason is most often the banal inattention and ignorance of users,” emphasizes senior specialist of the Avito security department Kirill Lavrov .

Below are the most common schemes used by scammers and rules that will help you avoid theft.

Replacing the payment page

You want to purchase something on a well-known website. The seller invites you to pay for your purchase online and sends you some kind of link. He claims that the buttons for placing an order, delivery or payment do not work on the site itself and hurries to follow the link sent to him. This is always a lie that is uttered for the sole purpose of luring you away from the real site to a fake version. Do not follow the link, much less enter your data there, even if its address is similar to the original one, and the page you land on looks exactly like the site you were on.

“If you buy or sell something on Avito, then the link can only be to the Avito website - www.avito.ru. If the address is similar, but not the same (for example, avitopayments.ru, avito-dostavka.ru, avitto.ru) - this is fraud. Moreover, you do not need to follow the links, since everything is already inside the avito.ru website. There is simply no need for an honest seller or buyer to send you a link. Attackers create Internet pages that are very similar to the payment section of a well-known website. After paying on such a page, at best you will not see either money or goods; at worst, other funds will be withdrawn from your card. Our security team monitors what happens on our platform, we warn the user when he receives a link that under no circumstances should he click on the links. However, if the buyer leaves using the link, we can no longer influence the transaction,” explains Kirill Lavrov.

In this way, not only buyers, but also sellers are deceived. When a person displays a product, he receives a call from a buyer who supposedly needs this product very urgently, finds out his details and sends a link - supposedly he has already transferred funds through the payment system or the internal service of the site. You just need to click on a button like “receive funds” or “deposit”.

Large online platforms are designed so that it is convenient for the seller and buyer to communicate and complete a transaction without going to third-party sites. In the built-in messengers of such platforms, it is often not even possible to insert an external link into the text of the message. If your interlocutor tries to take you to another site under various pretexts, refuse the deal. On a fraudulent site, you are not protected by anything and will not even be able to contact technical support for the trading platform you left.

Where to go first?

If the connection with the scammers has not yet been severed, start with a motivated complaint demanding a refund. Do not resort to insults and personalities, just correctly describe your position (you are not going to put up with fraud) and all your further steps (contacting the bank and law enforcement agencies), immediately add your card number and telephone number for a refund. If it doesn't help, proceed to the next steps.

All the answers on the Internet boil down to logical advice - contact the police or prosecutor's office regarding fraud. This is all good advice, but the first step is to contact your bank. This should be done as soon as possible, as a quick response will help increase the chances of a refund. If the transfer was made from an electronic wallet (Qiwi, Yandex, WebMoney) - write to their support. Inform the specialist about the fact of transferring funds to scammers and describe the essence of the situation.

If the payment was made automatically and without your participation, indicate to the specialist that your card has been hacked, request that it be blocked and declare your desire to submit an application for a refund. After submitting such a request, the bank's security service must begin checking your transfer.
If you personally transferred money, but the fact of fraud was discovered, immediately call the bank’s support and tell them about the details of the transfer (to whom, where and for what reason the money went). Keep in mind that banks are reluctant to consider refund cases if the client personally confirmed the transfer. Declare your desire to write a written application at the bank branch for a refund. There are not many chances, but if a large amount was transferred, it is worth a try.
It also happens that the operation is carried out with the participation of official payment systems. For example, a transfer through the Yandex.Money service will be indicated by the symbols YM or YM. In this case, you need to additionally write to the support of this payment system with a statement of fraud.

The main difficulty in this whole situation is the speed of transfers. Now transactions from card to card or by phone number are performed almost instantly, and the law prohibits banks from debiting money from the recipient’s account without his consent. The bank may see the fact of fraud - but it’s not so easy to write off money from the swindler’s account and return it to you.

The deceived person will have a good chance of canceling/freezing the transfer if the operation remains in the “In Progress” status. Depending on the recipient's details, the money can take up to 1-2 business days.

Scamming payment information

A 37-year-old resident of Yoshkar-Ola posted information about selling a vacuum cleaner on a popular free classifieds site. Soon she received a call from a stranger who expressed his willingness to purchase the device. To make the payment, the false buyer asked to dictate the card number and codes received in SMS messages. The woman conveyed the information. After this, the attacker gained access to her personal account of her mobile bank and transferred several thousand rubles from her bank card to his.

Codes from SMS messages from the bank, PIN code and CVV code of a bank card cannot be dictated or sent to anyone, ever. This data is not needed by buyers or sellers, and even your bank cannot ask for it. Only scammers ask for such data, and always for the purpose of deception. Using them, scammers can gain access to your online banking and withdraw money.

Internet fraud. Concept and basic forms

From a legal perspective, fraud is the theft of property that is accomplished through deception or breach of trust.
That is, the theft of other people's money or other valuables using the Internet is exactly the same crime as Fraud under Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (size and responsibility)

fraud committed in real life.

Today, online fraud comes in a wide variety of forms. We list the most common of them:

offer of participation in various projects, entry into which requires payment of a fee;
hacking and blocking of accounts on social networks, to restore access to which the scammers then ask to send an SMS message, which costs a lot of money and does not at all guarantee unblocking;
blocking the operating system using viruses, to remove which, as in the previous case, you need to send an SMS to a specific number;
requests to transfer money for treatment and other charitable purposes (however, not all requests of this kind are fraudulent);
sending emails with a message about the blocking of an electronic wallet (bank card, etc.) and a request to follow the specified link and enter personal data;
organization of financial pyramids;
sale of goods with the condition of prepayment, if in reality the buyer does not receive the goods (or a cheaper item arrives).
fraud on behalf of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation.

Please make an advance payment

A sought-after product is put up for sale, for example the iPhone 11 - it can be rare or at an attractive price. When a buyer expresses interest, the seller makes it clear that there are other suitors. He begins to hurry the buyer with a decision and asks to transfer an advance payment to an account in an online bank or payment system - usually part of the cost of the goods. Having received the money, the fraudster disappears from sight and adds the buyer to the blacklist.

You can protect yourself in the same way as with the substitution of payment forms - transfer money personally when receiving the goods, use the built-in function of a secure transaction or purchase with delivery on the platform itself (no links!). Such functions “freeze” the buyer’s money on the site, and the seller receives payment only after the buyer has received the goods and is convinced that everything is in order. If upon delivery at the point of issue it turns out that there is something wrong with the product, you can refuse the purchase. In this case, the money is returned to the buyer.

How to file a complaint against a car dealership?

There are no mandatory formal requirements for drawing up a complaint or claim. However, you must adhere to some rules:

The complaint must be made in writing and must be submitted on purpose with a mark on your copy indicating acceptance or by mail (registered mail).
The text of the complaint must contain information about who, where the complaint is being filed , from whom, then a descriptive part, what exactly happened and what the applicant does not agree with, links to regulations, and also the most important pleading part in which you must indicate that It is you who are asking the person responsible to do it. Be sure to sign and attach, if necessary, documents confirming your arguments.

The only body when submitting to which you need to comply with the requirements is the court, guided by procedural legislation, there are nuances here, both in writing the application and in submitting it. Thus, we believe that the formation of filing a claim with a judicial authority should be entrusted to professionals.

USEFUL : watch the video for additional tips on filing a complaint, and also contact us for filing a complaint if necessary

Sale/purchase with delivery

Remote payment and delivery give scammers room for activity. If you use third-party payment instruments and delivery services rather than services linked to the site that provide security, fraudsters can simply send low-quality goods to buyers from another city or use all the above schemes under the pretext of distance. Therefore, if possible, it is better to meet with sellers and buyers from the same city in person. Especially if you are selling or buying a product, the photograph of which makes it unclear whether it is working or not.

If the seller or buyer is in another city and there is no opportunity to meet, it is worth asking when he registered on the site, if he is a seller, how many and what other advertisements he has. The more long-time and active user he turns out to be, the better. If a user registered only yesterday, this is a reason to be wary: scammers often create new accounts. During the communication process, you can offer the interlocutor to use a secure transaction or meet in person. If this is an honest user, he will agree, and if it is a scammer, he will most likely interrupt the conversation. In any case, it is better to use the secure transaction and delivery functions, but only on the site itself (no links!).

How do they cheat at car dealerships?

Imposition of additional services, and here we are talking about both additional equipment for a specific vehicle, for example (alarm system, additional options), and the imposition of additional services not related to the sale of vehicles, these include the imposition of specific conditions for drawing up insurance contracts only with certain insurance companies, also services for concluding a vehicle purchase and sale agreement using credit funds. All certain actions of car dealership employees are aimed at infringing on the rights of consumers and providing false information.

This type of action can also include the sale of used cars after minor, and often after serious, damage to the vehicle. By hiding obvious defects and keeping silent about the presence of serious damage, car dealerships deliberately mislead consumers and sell cars at a price much higher than its actual market value.

Another of the main problems that consumers face is the sale of used cars to consumers from a car dealership, but the purchase and sale transaction of the vehicle is concluded with the previous owner. Thus, car dealerships act as intermediaries between the seller and the buyer. And the consumer, buying a vehicle under such conditions, ends up in a lottery, since he does not see the seller (the previous owner), does not see his documents, and due to this he may receive additional encumbrances for the purchase of his “new car” - the vehicle may be in collateral and have restrictions for registration actions, stolen or even worse - registration numbers (VIN, body, chassis) - may belong to another car. Such actions mostly apply to small car dealerships.

What should you do at a car dealership when purchasing so as not to be deceived?

Of course, it is necessary to check the technical condition of the vehicle , since it is objectively an important aspect in the matter of purchasing a vehicle.
But an equally important circumstance is checking the documents of the previous owner, documents for the vehicle, as well as documents drawn up by the car dealership for the upcoming transaction.
First of all, you need to make sure that the owner of the vehicle is a car dealership . The seller, if he is a legal entity, is obliged to provide title documents that the legal entity is valid, has not been liquidated, or ceased its activities. The specified facts can also be checked on the website of the Federal Tax Service in the section extracts from the Unified State Register or Unified State Register, where you can also obtain the specified information.
The next step is to proceed to directly checking the documents for the purchased vehicle . The seller must provide a purchase and sale agreement, a certificate of state registration of the vehicle, a Vehicle Passport, where the owner of the property must indicate a specific car dealership (legal entity).
And the last step to verify the legality of the transaction, it is necessary to carefully study the purchase and sale agreement concluded with the consumer; it must indicate the correct identification data belonging to the specific vehicle, that the product is free from the rights of third parties. It is imperative, if the purchase of a vehicle is accompanied by a loan, to pay attention to the interest rate, the cost of the vehicle, as well as additional services in the form of imposed insurance, in addition to compulsory motor liability insurance, CASCO insurance (life, health, etc.).

When you receive your order

Don't pick up what you didn't order

A sudden package is always curious: maybe some kind of gift? But you know where there is free cheese.

Specialists of the Postal Security Department of Russian Post.

Fraudsters steal customer databases from large online stores and send them parcels with foreign objects. A person who has not ordered anything receives a notification from Russian Post that he needs to receive a box with cash on delivery. He does this, but there is nothing valuable inside.

Usually a good indicator that you have encountered a scammer is a “non-returnable” mark on the box. This means that the package contains something of such low value that the sender does not want to get it back, even if the “client” refuses to pick it up.

Check the integrity of the packaging and weight

If these parameters do not correspond to those stated, ask an employee to open the box.

Please check the attachment if possible.

It happens that the shipping tariff includes the ability to check what is inside. But the recipient decides not to bother and look at the contents of the box at home. You shouldn't do this. If you can look into the package, it is better to do so in front of witnesses.