The Interior Ministry warned about a new scheme of scammers with "frozen" New Year gifts

A new fraudulent scheme has been recorded in St. Petersburg, in which intruders pose as representatives of large retail chains. This was announced on January 15 in the press service of the Department for combating the illegal use of information and communication technologies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region in the Telegram channel.

It is noted that scammers contact citizens on behalf of well-known retailers and report allegedly "hung" or "unbought" New Year's gifts. Laptops, smartphones, and other equipment are offered as such products at a reduced price or as part of a fictional special program. To "book" a purchase, the attackers are asked to dictate a code from an SMS message.

The agency explained that this code is actually used to gain access to banking applications or personal accounts, as well as to debit funds from the card. Law enforcement officers emphasized that legal stores do not request SMS codes to reserve goods.

Residents of the city were advised to be wary of reports of suspiciously profitable sales and in no case transmit SMS codes to unknown persons. If the code has already been sent to fraudsters, you must immediately contact the bank, block transactions, change passwords and check the movement of funds on the accounts.

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The attackers are taking advantage of the financial difficulties of Russians due to New Year's expenses and long vacations.

Evgeny Masharov, a member of the commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation for the public examination of draft laws, warned on January 7 that the peak of remote theft occurs in the period from late December to mid-January, when citizens often lose their vigilance. According to him, during the holidays, scammers actively use links to greeting cards, messages about discounts and bonuses, as well as requests to send SMS codes.

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