A family in the Urals lost 9 million rubles while trying to install an update on a phone.

      A couple from Zlatoust fell victim to telephone scammers and lost 9 million rubles they had been saving for many years.

      According to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Chelyabinsk Region, the scam began with a phone call from a person who identified himself as an employee of a mobile operator. The caller persuaded the 56‑year‑old man to install “updates” to enable 5G connectivity.

      Following the scammers’ instructions, the couple downloaded and installed unknown files on their phones. After that the devices stopped working — for six hours they did not respond to their owners’ commands. During that time the fraudsters kept calling and assuring them that the system update was in progress.

      When the couple rebooted their phones, they discovered that all their savings had disappeared from their accounts — 9 million rubles had been transferred to unknown accounts.

      The police have opened a criminal investigation into theft on a particularly large scale. Law enforcement officials remind: mobile-operator staff never ask users to install updates manually or to download files from third‑party sources.

      Earlier in Moscow a 72‑year‑old woman lost 28 million rubles after falling victim to phone scammers who posed as government officials.