In Yekaterinburg, a pensioner gave scammers 7.5 million rubles.

      In Yekaterinburg, a pensioner handed over 7.45 million rubles to scammers. This was reported by the media relations department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Yekaterinburg.

      Initially, the victim received a call from an unknown person who introduced himself as an employee of the housing maintenance service. He informed that there had been a technical failure in the system, which required confirming the identity of the apartment owner. To do this, the victim needed to provide a code from an SMS. The man complied.

      After that, a notification appeared on his phone screen: "Hotline of the Ministry of Digital Development: a suspicious operation has been made in your name, please call back." By pressing it, the subscriber connected with a man who introduced himself as an "emergency service employee." He stated that an electronic power of attorney had been issued in the name of the pensioner for a third party to manage his accounts and property.

      Then the Yekaterinburg resident received calls from "Rosfinmonitoring" and the "FSB." Each new call escalated the situation and increased the pressure. Ultimately, the scammers convinced him to hand over the cash amount to a courier. They then persuaded the elderly man that he needed to sell his car and give all the proceeds to the courier.

      After that, the pensioner was convinced to download a mobile application disguised as the official service of the financial regulator. He was then instructed to go to an ATM and transfer all his remaining money to the dictated account details. When he did all this, the pensioner realized that he had become a victim of fraud.

      The victim admitted that he had seen preventive materials in the media, as well as informational leaflets about scammers in the entrance. Nevertheless, the criminals managed to skillfully exploit the fear of losing property, create the illusion of government agency involvement, and instill a sense that action needed to be taken immediately, without the possibility of stopping and thinking everything through.

      Earlier, a young resident of Sverdlovsk helped scammers rob his own father.