According to Gerashchenko, a girl named Angelina Crane tried to get to know him through VKontakte. From the communication, it became clear to the young man that his interlocutor was confused in the testimony: at first she said that she lived in Florida, then she admitted that she was currently in Nigeria, and then she wrote that she was from California, but lives in Ohio.

Gerashchenkov realized that he was dealing with a fraudster, but did not stop communicating, but decided to see where the conversation would lead. He copied into the correspondence with the "girl" several standard advertisements for looking for a companion from Craigslist. In response, "Angelina" gave him the number of her neighbor and asked for help with money, citing a difficult financial situation.

""Girl" asked to send her only 50-60 dollars, but the startup decided to surprise her and said that she deserves more - at least 600 dollars. The scammer immediately provided information about his Western Union account, as well as his home address, index and real name - Olukade Kehinde Martins. Olukade was so happy with 500 dollars a week that he forgot and began to write words a la Ode, which in the Nigerian dialect is consonant with our "Wah!". At the same time, the addressee for the translation turned out. But I'm stupid rich Amish, who even in Western Union is asked for the addressee ID.Angelina could not remember what the Americans have SSN: "Honey I don't have ssn and what do you mean by ssn?" Although any US citizen knows his Social Security Number by heart," said Artyom Gerashchenkov, co-founder of the AddtoApp service.

According to Gerashchenko, due to the excitement, Olukade even agreed to send photos of his Nigerian passport, although he continued to support the legend that these were documents of Angelina's neighbor.

Since the startup was not going to transfer money, he came up with a way to outwit the Nigerian - to pretend that he works for Apple and is just about to send a batch of iPhones to Nigeria for sale.

“Did dear Angelina know that I was an exporter of Apple? And I am directly acquainted with Hornbaker himself (I should also say that I know Fulkina-Mulkin himself in Gazprom!) And I just need to send a batch of 200 iPhones to Lagos "Nigeria. Proof? Here I am, in a white T-shirt near the stage! Can my newfound love take over these 200 phones and take one from there? What to do with the other 199? Well, the funds for them have already been paid by the Nigerian mobile phone store, and I, relying on the Christian roots and respectable upbringing of the addressee, believe that her friend Olukade will not steal them." Artyom Gerashchenkov added.

As evidence that he is really connected with Apple and is currently sending a batch of iPhones to Nigeria, Gerashchenkov presented the first photos he came across from a Google image search. To be more sure that the scammer would "swallow the bait" of 200 iPhones for the price of one, the young man allowed him to take two iPhones from the batch, not just one.

In order to convince the Nigerian to transfer money and prevent him from having time to calculate the risks (for example, how exactly to get such a batch at customs and why a Nigerian communication store will agree to a smaller number of smartphones), Gerashchenkov began to talk about problems at customs. With limited time and confusion, Olukade agreed to transfer $600.

When the money was received, Olukade nevertheless guessed to ask the startup for the details of the cargo declaration: “I had to admit that I am also from Nigeria. He sent “his” photo, made it clear that he was from the Edo people,” Gerashchenko said.

Our trust in representatives of state structures, including such as Energobyt, is too great. That is why, as soon as they come, we open the doors affably and let them in. Only a few admit the thought that under the guise of an electrician who came to conduct a scheduled inspection of meters and electrical wiring, a fraudster, or even a robber, may be hiding. Form, a few words about the forced check and ... you are left without a large amount of money ... Moreover, after their arrival there is a risk of fire in your apartment ... Who are they and how to protect yourself from them?

Pseudoelectric scams

Have you been knocked on the door demanding access to the meter, sockets and wiring for inspection? Do not rush to open doors and open your wallet. There is a fairly high probability that in front of you is not an electrician sent to check your electrical panel, but a scammer who intends to swindle you for money.

The attacker's scheme is almost always the same. A man in overalls, or sometimes even without them, comes and reports that he is here to check the electrical wiring due to more frequent fires in your area or in connection with the replacement of meters. You must have seen the ad at the entrance? So, you know that he must come.

Many do not even name the organization from which they came, or they say some name that can pass for the truth, for example, "Electric Network". The majority, without any doubt, let the "electrician" in and give him complete freedom of action, especially since the announcement warned of his arrival. How do they know that the ad is fake, and the “specialist” himself is not here at all for the sake of verification?

And then ... then it all depends on how exactly the scammer works. Some really do some work, replacing the meters in the panel or some parts in your apartment, arguing that the old ones are out of order or are fire hazardous. Moreover, it is not at all necessary that these actions are really necessary. But they will tell you for a long time what huge overpayments await if you do not change the meter, how your electrical wiring “poked out”, how a couple of houses from you had a fire in your apartment due to the fact that the wiring was blocked. How can you not believe and disagree? True, the price hits hard on your pocket, but what can you do ... safety is more expensive ... Alas, not only will such “specialists” charge you three times more for their services than official services, but on the contrary, they will expose you to a fire hazard. They have zero experience and no knowledge. So what kind of security are we talking about?

Other scammers decide not to bother with the work of replacing meters or electrical wiring, but act in a different way. They just take money for a perfect check, or they demand to give a certain amount, for which they will go and buy everything necessary to reinstall some elements in your apartment, but in fact they will immediately evaporate to the ends, you just have to give them the required 2-4 thousand rubles .

It could be worse. Some intruders, posing as electricians and thus gaining access to the apartment, rob residents, taking out money, jewelry, small appliances, while the owners are in another room and go about their business.

Cases of fraud and theft

Scams with pseudoelectrics are gaining momentum more and more. The services of many cities in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are already officially warning that we must beware of scammers who come to check or replace meters under the guise of an employee of official energy sales services.

There are many cases of deception. And even despite the fact that law enforcement agencies manage to detain some attackers, the number of victims is only increasing. So, a 24-year-old resident of Petrozavodsk, posing as an electrician, committed 12 thefts, stealing gold jewelry and large sums of 10 thousand rubles from pensioners. In Omsk, a man, convincing people that their meter was malfunctioning, took 4,000 rubles each to buy parts and went into hiding. In Tomsk, another pseudo-electrician changed serviceable equipment for a similar one, and in violation of the installation procedure, and performed simple work costing within 100 rubles. For his services, the "specialist" took from 1200 to 2600 rubles.

How to recognize a scammer

Already in almost every city of the Russian Federation, scammers disguised as an electrician are operating. Therefore, you should be careful. If a person also knocked on your door with a message about checking your meters, sockets or wiring and replacing them if necessary, do not let him in immediately thoughtlessly. Even if there is an announcement about it downstairs in the entrance. Who knows if this is really an employee of the official service of the city or a scammer trying to extract money from you? Figuring this out will only take a matter of minutes, and it's better to lose a little time and look meticulous than to lose money later, and even pay extra for rework after a would-be master. All you have to do is:

1. Pay attention to whether the person is wearing overalls.
2. Check documents, in particular the certificate of an employee of the organization. It should contain the following data: number, full name of the employee, structural unit where he works, his position, validity period of the certificate. Be sure to check if the document has a seal, if the photo matches the person who came to you.
3. Considering how developed the market for fake documents is, you should not breathe a sigh of relief if everything is in order with the certificate. It is possible that it could be fake. Therefore, the best defense is to call the service that serves your area and find out if you really have inspections scheduled. If the answer is no, feel free to slam the doors or call law enforcement.

A few minutes of time and a little caution, and you will minimize the risks of being deceived. Do not neglect the above methods of verification, and you will not become another victim of intruders, who was swindled for money or robbed.

According to Hackers in 2017 stole almost a billion rubles from Russians Central Bank, in 2017, 961 million rubles were stolen from the accounts of Russians. The average amount of a transaction for which the cardholder did not give consent was 3,000 rubles. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s still unpleasant, given that often thefts could have been easily avoided.

Often it's just a matter of carelessness. Technological progress has given us smart devices that make life easier, but, alas, not safer. By hacking into one of the gadgets connected to your home network, attackers, if they wish, can get all your personal information. Personal data, logins, passwords - you yourself will not notice how information about your life on the Internet will float away to scammers.

To learn how to reliably protect yourself from attacks by cybercriminals, come to the lecture “How your kettle will rob you: the basics of financial security in the modern world” from the “Financial Environment” series. Speaker - Artyom Sychev, Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for Security and Information Protection of the Bank of Russia. He will tell you how cybercriminals manipulate the minds of victims, how your activity on social networks can play into the hands of scammers, and what to do if they are trying to rob you or have already been robbed.

The lecture will take place on May 16 at 19:00 at the N. A. Nekrasov Central Library (Moscow, Baumanskaya street, 58/25, p. 14). All lectures of the "Financial Environment" cycle are free, but you need to register in advance so that you definitely have enough space.

Tricks to be aware of

And yet, the Internet of things is often not as dangerous as the most banal and familiar to many money divorce schemes. Everything seems to be elementary, these tricks are well-known, but people still fall for them.

1. A profitable job offer

If you come across an ad that promises good money for dust-free work at home, do not rush to rejoice. Often such stories turn out to be banal fraud.

You are asked to transfer some amount, for example, to pay for teaching aids and to confirm the seriousness of your intentions. The money asked is not so big, especially compared to the future salary. Why not, you think. That's all. You can write to the failed employer as much as you like, you are unlikely to get an answer. No one will refund your money either.

What to do

Do not believe sweet promises. Look for reviews about working in the company - there will surely be stories of deceived people who received a donut hole instead of money. Finally, think soberly: why do you even need to pay for a job that you have not yet taken?

2. Letter from a “bank employee”

What to do

Do not provide your card details to anyone and do not follow dubious links. If a person posing as a bank employee asks for the card number, expiration date and CVV code, he is probably a scammer. Call the bank's direct line and find out if the representatives of the financial institution actually sent you the letter.

3. Asking "friends" for help

Transfer the required amount, and then a surprise: it turns out that a real friend did not ask you for any money. His page was simply hacked and a decent harvest was harvested, playing on the feelings of gullible acquaintances.

What to do

Make sure it's really your friend. Call him, write SMS, in general, contact him in any way, except for a message on the social network. And just in case, change the password for your account, especially if you use the same one everywhere. You never know, all of a sudden then you will have to justify yourself to everyone who sent money to a swindler who introduced himself as your name.

4. Scammers

The scheme is extremely simple. You have found an advertisement for the sale of an item that you really need. Only now the seller asks for an advance payment: you never know, suddenly you deceive him, you will receive the goods, but you will not transfer the money.

In fact, they are deceiving you. You send the necessary amount to the seller, he writes, they say, the parcel has been sent, wait. You wait and wait and wait again. As you might guess, the purchase will not come to you, because no one thought to send it.

What to do

Do not buy anything from dubious online stores. Before sending money, try to find information about the seller. Perhaps someone has already fallen for his bait and shared indignation on the Web. And, of course, insist on payment upon receipt of the parcel.

5. Dubious sites

For example, the same online store. You buy something there, enter your card details, and then you get a notification that an amount exceeding the purchase price has been deducted from your account. And it's good if such a notification comes only once.

Before paying, take a look at the address bar. If the resource address starts with https, everything is fine, the connection is secure. If with http - chances are high that your data will float away into the hands of criminals.

What to do

Carefully watch where and what data you enter. In cases where you still fell for the bait of scammers, immediately call the bank and block the card.

Vigilance is the best defense against scammers, but other qualities are needed to manage your personal budget effectively. On the Financial Culture website, you will find good advice on how to make friends with money and manage it wisely.

You can learn more about how cybercriminals work at the lecture "How your teapot will rob you: the basics of financial security in the modern world." Sign up yourself and tell your friends about the lecture: such information is never superfluous.

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Recognize a scammer by the first letter

Once I was lonely and I created profiles on several international dating sites at once.

I had experience of communication on language exchange resources, once it came to a vivid romance, so I decided to try: suddenly I would meet my fate in the ranks of Spanish doctors and Argentine pilots.

Ekaterina Papatsenko

getting acquainted

In parallel, I began to study forums where girls shared their experiences. So I found out that there are a lot of scammers on international dating sites. They also tried to scam me.

How it works: residents of Russia and other countries create fake profiles, fall in love with women and swindle money from them under various pretexts. To do this, they manipulate, deceive, impersonate other people, lure them with promises of gifts and moving to a luxurious mansion for permanent residence. This is already a whole industry, scammers work on a stream, and it is easy to fall for tricks. That's how I protected myself.

Communication style of scammers

If you think that you have received a message from the perfect man, most likely you have encountered a scammer.

The following scheme usually works: scammers compose a generic universal text that will affect all women. This text is sent out in bulk to all new women on the site. If someone responds, they begin personal work with her with the ultimate goal of extracting money.

The first mailing is such networks, an attempt to identify the most gullible ladies. In the first letter, the man will only say good things about himself, the letter itself will be stereotyped and impersonal, it will not contain references to your profile.

If they write something about you, then the maximum is about the eyes. The calculation is very simple: almost everyone has eyes, and even if a woman is unhappy with her figure, she obviously will not refuse a compliment to her eyeballs. If your new interlocutor is drowning in the pool of your eyes - a reason to think.

Here is what Rafael writes to me: “I am from Peru, but now I live in Spain. I have been a doctor for almost 5 years. I am single but would like to find someone special for a relationship. I am a romantic, dreamer, hardworking, very honest, I respect people. I don't smoke or drink. Instead, I read books, go for walks, watch movies, enjoy life and play the guitar.”

Scammers often call themselves romantics, very honest, hardworking, to appear as goodies. Most often they present themselves as doctors and rescuers. There may be another profession, but certainly an unusual one, for example, an airplane pilot. The most popular job of a scammer is a doctor. Another on-duty bike is a widower who brings up children alone.

The reader should have the following general feeling from such messages: this person has a difficult life, so he needs not just a woman, but a special, “lady of the heart”. If you have such an impression, sound the alarm.

Other signs of mass email scams:

1. A man does not ask you questions, he only talks about himself.
2. A man from the very first message is looking for a serious relationship, a life partner, everything is serious with him.
3. A man lives in a prosperous European country, he has property and a well-paid job, but at the same time he meets on an international site.
4. The man has no bad habits, he goes in for sports.
5. All this looks like a fairy tale.

Of course, a man who is serious about dating can also start with a template letter. But it will not contain such romantic words about yourself that scammers use. A man tuned in to a real meeting will write something like this:

Another scammer is unlikely to start his correspondence in monosyllables - this is a bad filter for simpletons. The first message should help the scammer select gullible ladies, and not include everyone in a row in the dialogue.

Successful scammers understand that emotions make a person more vulnerable and less sensitive to the truth. Your task is to keep cool until the real meeting. This is easy to say, but not easy to do, especially for those who are fundamentally important to get married as soon as possible.

Even if you have fallen in love with your pen pal, don't take any action until the actual meeting. Otherwise, you can fall for one of the fraudulent schemes.

Basic fraud schemes

Here are some ways a scammer will try to get money from you.

“We really need money for the treatment of a relative.” The scammer uses this scheme when he understands that you believed in his love and completely trust him. Therefore, a man needs to ingratiate himself with you, talk about how beautiful you and your children are.

It seems that no woman in her right mind would send money to a man she has never seen in her life. So it seems to everyone until they fall into the clutches of experienced scammers. These guys are well aware of the typical psychological wounds of Russian women, they know how to grope and use them.

It’s good when a woman has friends with whom you can discuss the situation: people from the outside will immediately see the absurdity of the moment. But often women on dating sites are lonely, scammers shake them emotionally - and now they are already standing in the Western Union office.

If you refuse financial assistance, the scammer will disappear. You drop off his list of prospective sluts, he turns his attention to others. Remember that a scammer has several women in processing at once and he will not waste extra time on you.

"I've been in trouble." The scammer writes that he is in a difficult situation and asks you to help him with money. If you refuse, the man will most likely ask you a lot, then he will start bargaining (reducing the amount), and then he will disappear altogether.

Screenshot from the Candidates Forum

"Send me an SMS to a short number." The man says that he is now in extreme conditions, for example, in the mountains, and he only receives SMS to a short number. If you send an SMS to this short number, an unusually large amount will be debited from your account.

"Money went out for a ticket." The scammer says that he really wants to visit you, but he cannot afford it financially. He asks for a money transfer, which he will use to buy tickets to your city.

Offer him this option: he tells you his first and last name (you can require a passport photo), and you buy a ticket on the airline's website. If a man refuses, then most likely he is deceiving you.

Toll scam. The man asks for your address and full name to "send a gift". You only need to pay customs duty - transfer money to the current account, which he will inform you. Often this is a bank account or Qiwi wallet.

Of course, you can actually send a gift. The fact of fraud is indicated by a request to transfer money to a specific account. There is another psychological nuance here. It may seem to you that 1,790 rubles of duty is nonsense, and you can pay it. But scammers have it on stream, so they are happy with such small amounts.

To pay the state duty, you must receive an official notification from the customs broker. To be sure that you are not being deceived, contact the customs service directly.

How to check a candidate

Fraud on dating sites is a real business. New female profiles are registered daily, scammers immediately take them into processing and squeeze out money. Some scammers operate alone, while others build entire networks of accounts. Most often they write to newcomers who have not yet encountered negativity in international acquaintances.

On forums and in personal correspondence, girls told me that scammers most often imitate Americans. Often scammers are not Americans or Spaniards, but your fellow citizens with Google Translate.

Some dating sites specifically warn users not to send money to online acquaintances. For a request to send money, you can receive a complaint and be removed from the site.

Despite such warnings, fraud is rampant. I advise you not to waste time and check the candidate as soon as possible.

Check the photo on Google Images. Often scammers find an attractive photo on the Internet and put it in their profile, because there is a demand for handsome men. Your task is to make sure that there are no photographs of the same man under a different name. You can also ask the interlocutor to send his photo with a certain gesture or an inscription especially for you. A gentleman will not refuse a lady such a whim, and swindlers will not have time for these nonsense.

How to Check Photos with Google Image Search

Check the interlocutor in the lists of scammers. Type in the search "black lists of suitors", "list of scammers". You will receive links to sites, forums, discussions. See if there are any mentions of the man you are talking to. It is unlikely that scammers will use the same accounts for many scams, but there are lazy ones among them.

Read the forums and learn from other people's experiences. My favorite forum is From-russia.org. Here you can read about scammers (scammers), "virtual writers", see personal stories. The forum is useful for girls who are serious about looking for a husband from abroad. Well, a lot of hell for those who love hell.

Check the text of the first letter in an anti-plagiarism program. Fraudsters exchange email texts over their network. They can also copy an email template from a scammer forum, hoping that the girl won't bother looking for plagiarism. Use content-watch.ru or another resource. It will show the number of matches in the text and the source where the repeated fragment is placed. Make sure the text is not posted on a scam site.

Call a man on Skype or any other video messenger. Most likely, the scammer will refuse. He simply does not have time for this: he needs to write to other girls. In addition, on Skype you will immediately see that the photos posted in the profile do not correspond to reality. Skype refusal is difficult to explain, so if the object refuses, goodbye.

Take a closer look at the details. There are always inconsistencies in the stories of scammers, because there are many of you, and he is alone, he has no time to fact-check his letters. For example, he says that he lives in a big house, but in the video he only shows a small room. Or he writes that he has a house and 8 acres (3.2 ha) of land, and the next day he says that he has 5 acres (2 ha). As in the example below. Well, a person took a different template, well, it happens:

How not to lose money, even if you were not asked for it

Sometimes you can lose money on a dating site, even if you are not asked for it. For example, if a man made an appointment for you, but he did not appear at it. Here are the main mistakes.

Go to a man to visit for your money. The man invites you. The woman arrives, but he ignores this meeting. There can be many reasons: maybe he has a binge, or maybe he's just a bad person. There are many stories on the forums about similar cases when traveling abroad.

Ask the man to issue an official invitation to your arrival. This requires the provision of personal data. A man who is not serious will refuse such a step. Sometimes a man says: “Come visit me. Buy tickets - I will return it to you on the spot. No, let him buy the tickets in your name.

Invite a man to your house. You never know what an internet friend will throw out. At first, it may seem silly to invite a stranger to your home. But men weave such webs of words, put pressure on emotions, logic, and anything else, just to have a good time, and at the same time profit from something from your property.

Ask the guest to take with them copies of the passport pages, where the full name and address will be visible. Let him show them to you when you meet at the airport. If you don't feel comfortable, tell them that the crazy Russian KGB men can then invite you for interrogation and you don't want to risk it. Here is a phrase book for you.

Folk phrasebook: how to ask a friend from the Internet to show you a passport

Compiled by the Internet. It may contain errors, but your friend from the Internet will understand you.

The elderly are especially prone to cheating, statistics say. First, they tend to have more savings than the young, which attracts scammers; and secondly, with age we become more trusting - contrary to the opinion that life teaches us something.

But this does not mean that if you are not yet retired, you can relax and not be afraid of scammers - everyone can become a victim of deception, especially now, when the way to every house is literally open for deceivers. Mobile phones, e-mail, ICQ - more and more new means of communication make us more and more vulnerable to deception. So you have to always be on the lookout. Here are 10 of the most common scams that have stood the test of time and operate wherever there are people and money.

1. Work at home. S/n is high!

The wave of unemployment, which swept the entire civilized world, could not but become a reason for the development of new "wiring". More precisely, the scheme itself is as old as the world, but interest in it flared up in a new way. And all because of the crisis.

“Work at home. Secondary education, high salary” – dozens of such ads can be seen on the street, in the subway, on the Internet, even in newspapers. It would seem that one should be wary: what will this “highest salary” be paid for to a person without education and special skills? But people believe: they believe and call the specified numbers. Then they are asked to pay, say, 1000 rubles, and in return they are offered a kit for training a new employee. In fact, this set turns out to be a bundle of papers (at best, a disk), indicating how to “breed” a couple more fellows in misfortune.

Or this option: you are offered a job on proofreading or layout of the text. To get a permanent job, you need to complete a trial task, which (attention!) will be sent to you for a symbolic amount - 300 rubles. Like, "Sorry, we have often been deceived and have not completed any tasks, so we ask you to leave such a deposit." Well, what could be more touching than deceivers justifying their hard lives? This is what they earn.

2. You became the 1000th visitor

You receive a letter, for example, from Spain - or any other distant country - but always in English. It congratulates you on the fact that one day, by going to such and such a site, you automatically became a participant in the prize draw - and won! The prize is a large sum of money or a car. To get it, you just need to transfer a certain amount of money to a certain account in order to pay for the delivery of the prize to Russia. Naturally, the money is gone irrevocably and without a trace. There are cases when people lost several thousand dollars in the hope that now they will finally be sent their winnings.

3. Become a landowner

The scam begins with the fact that the deceiver buys some overgrown field and cuts it into small plots. Each piece is sold to an individual victim for exorbitant prices. Here the talent and charm of the deceiver himself plays a role: his task is to convince the victim that soon a highway will be laid here or an amusement park will be built and the land will rise in price ten times. Fake building plans and documents are being used. Naturally, no construction is actually planned, and the scammers disappear, leaving their victims on a worthless piece of land.

4. Pyramids

The classic pyramid scheme involves hundreds to several thousand "depositors", each of whom contributes a relatively small amount of money. The promised gigantic dividends are paid out by newly arrived victims.

According to a more advanced scheme, the participants in the pyramid are invited to independently involve their friends and acquaintances in the “cause”. A certain fee is paid for each convert (and it is collected from the same converts). Your friends are offered to do the same - and so on ad infinitum, until the pyramid is exposed or its creators decide to close the shop.

5. Innovative business

This wiring is designed for people with money and free views. Fraudsters seek out those who are willing to take risks and dream of owning their own business, and ask them to invest in their business. As a business plan, a potential investor is offered some kind of “super idea”, most often using revolutionary technologies or some kind of personal invention. The victim is promised mountains of gold and returns in the first six months after the investment, but as soon as the so-called businessman receives the money, he naturally evaporates.

6. Work on the phone

Another "work from home" scam. The most attractive is the promise that "you will be able to earn without breaking away from your usual activities." Allegedly, one hour a day is enough to beat off your weekly earnings at your main job. Naturally, no special skills are again required. You only need to pay for an employee certificate and a special phone number. The end of this story is predictable.

7. Goodbye car

The main victims of such scams are private car dealers. In a crisis period, when prices began to fall by leaps and bounds, people do not care much about the profit of the sale and try to quickly get rid of the property - until its price has fallen to zero. This is used by pseudo-buyers who offer the seller a higher price, but ... on the condition that payment is in the form of a bank check or a receipt for a third party. By the time the seller discovers that the check is fake and the receipt is for a "dead soul", the buyer has already managed to drive the car abroad or resell it.

8. Time to invest in stocks

With the onset of the crisis, the value of the shares of many supercompanies fell by 50% or even 80%. Therefore, many analysts began to urge the general public to buy securities while they are so cheap. They say that in 3 years, when the crisis is over, the shares will rise in price at times and their holders will be able to earn a fair amount.

A flurry of such recommendations could not but play into the hands of scammers. Pseudo-brokers call novice or potential investors and offer to buy so many shares of a certain company. She supposedly should soon rise due to a change in management or a transition to a new efficient production. Moreover, the employees of this company themselves have already begun to buy up its own securities, which is direct evidence of its rapid growth. Hurry up - there are only a few shares left.

After spending about $20,000, investors soon discover that they have invested in a shell company. As a rule, this is some kind of one-day, registered a few days before the start of the scam and existing only on paper. Or a company with a long, but not the most successful history. Of course, it is impossible to sell such shares.

9. Letter to you

This scheme is called phishing. To organize such an operation, the fraudster needs a computer and a client base of some bank. Fortunately for lovers of easy money, these bases can be purchased at any radio market.

So, you receive an email purporting to be from your bank's security department. You are informed that your savings may have been attacked by fraudsters, so the bank needs to conduct a complete audit of your financial transactions. This requires very little - your passport data and access codes to a bank account. Once the scammers get this data, they can do whatever they want with your money. Remember: no bank will ever ask you for personal data, and even more so for your card pin.

10. Place bets, gentlemen

Another category of the most frequent victims of scammers is gamblers. And we are not talking about casino regulars and slot machine lovers, who, in fact, deceive themselves. Fraudsters cash in on fans of horse racing and other sporting events.

For example, you want to bet on a horse or wrestler, and some helpful and knowledgeable person offers to sell you a "secret" - who is better prepared for the competition, who is lame in one leg, etc. Seasoned players don't fall for this, but newcomers do it all the time.

Another scheme: you are asked to bet money on such and such a horse. They say she will win, the swindler knows this for sure. In return, he asks for 50% of the winnings, and in case of failure, he promises to compensate for the damage. Of course, the bet does not win, and the scammer disappears immediately after paying the fee.

According to The Guardian