Keeping up with the times: phone scammers threaten Russians with Ukraine on behalf of the FSB

Civic activist Karina Starostina , who has been taking care of the spontaneous Boris Nemtsov memorial on Moskvoretsky Bridge for several years, shared an amazing story on her blog about how phone scammers quickly change their tactics:

“The cell phone rang. The number is unfamiliar. I have a bad habit of answering all calls and telephones and at the door. I pick up the phone:

- Hello.

In the receiver, an unfamiliar voice began to speak quickly and businesslike:

- Investigator Yablokov Nikolai Vladimirovich. A criminal case has been opened.

There are many thoughts in my head. But I answer:

- Wait, let me write it down.

I conscientiously write down: last name, first name, patronymic, where he serves, the number of the token. And he continues and says that there was an attempt to withdraw money from my card by proxy, that this is a dangerous crime. And I realize that I'm starting to believe a little. I am initially suggestible and malleable person.

And he continues about the fact that they tried to take a loan in my name, etc. etc. Gradually I understand: scammers.

Then he says:

- Now I will transfer you to an employee of the Central Bank. He is doing this.

Music plays on the phone. A few seconds later, a female voice greets me:

- Hello, I am Terentyeva Anna Mikhailovna.

She calls her personnel number, starts pouring in some terms, explaining them. He says that I should not tell anyone anything in connection with article 183.

And I also have to call somewhere, I should receive a certain code of 4 digits. I have to call Sberbank and say a certain phrase and this code. Maybe I'm confusing something, but something like this. I refuse to do this and say that if everything is so bad, then let me come to you, you show your documents and after that we will decide what to do.

We start bickering. It takes some time for this.

The conversation is interrupted. Do you think that's it? No, the most interesting is ahead...

Almost immediately, there is another call. I did not catch my new interlocutor introduced himself or not. He immediately shocked me with the fact that an FSB officer was talking to me.

And again: I must do what the Central Bank officer tells me, that I am obstructing the investigation. I refuse to deal with such matters over the phone. And then he says the most interesting:

- Do you know who tried to withdraw money from you? This is a member of the Armed Forces. They fraudulently withdraw money, and then with this money they buy weapons from which our guys die. And I'll be charged under Section 205 as a sponsor of terrorism.

The conversation gets really interesting.

But I bend my own, that I do not mind helping the investigation, but I need their documents.

The FSB officer offers me to send a certificate via messenger. I am laughing:

- With the help of Photoshop, you can make as many such certificates as you like.

He offers to look at the FSB phone number on the website, and the truth is, he calls me on the same phone from the FSB. But then I remember the movie of N-go, how he changed the phone number and I say, they say, there are programs that change the phone number.

He is outraged:

- In the FSB we have such protection ...

And the conversation goes around again.

And again about everything and about weapons. I bend mine.

He can't stand it and hangs up. This is where it all ends.

Those. scammers began to frighten gullible citizens with Ukrainians and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

By the way, I must say that they spoke convincingly and, perhaps, there was some other influence ... "