During times of acute economic crisis, cases of fraud tend to shoot up. This is especially true of telephone and Internet-based fraud. {In 2022 alone, Russians lost an estimated 14.2 billion rubles from telephone call fraud.} All kinds of con-artists attempt to use the latest gadgets to rob the most vulnerable and weakest of society; the lonely, the gullible, the old, the deaf, and those trapped in addiction of some sort. The results of such scams are not only a loss of money but self-esteem and trust in other people.
In some of the worst cases such fraud has led to the victims being rendered homeless and even murdered. For instance, in one recent legal case two old deaf people who had lost their homes and been imprisoned by a gang managed to escape to inform the police.
StreetSense interviewed some victims—and some would-be victims of such fraud. Given the typically unpleasant experiences many people don't answer their phones.
The mobile phone rings on endlessly. It buzzes on and on. Its monotonous drone annoys me. I wonder which sounds more irritable—the phone or me! It almost sounds like a grotesque bloated insect made out of hard plastic or metal. You never get much peace from this fiendish device which can be used by an intrusive boss, criminal or stalker.
Luckily, I have not reached the drastic stage of picking it up and hurling it against the wall or testing whether it is waterproof by throwing it into a swimming pool like one Russian did, apparently. But give it time!
People might ask me, "Why don't you answer the phone?" One plausible answer is: "This is the best way to counter potential con-artists." Just don't give them any attention…
If in doubt do not answer it! Or if you have answered—and should not have—simply put the phone down.
Unfortunately, some people can't put the phone down and can't simply say, “No!” I spoke to a 91-year-old victim. This pensioner gave her address and invited con-artists into her apartment who then proceeded to threaten her and ransack her apartment. They stole 20,000 rubles. The victim called 'Olga' {not her real name} who lives in a Moscow apartment told me "It was such a terrible ordeal. It was not just the loss of money but how the experience was so frightening!"
She went on to tell me about another incident of how some con-artists phoned her claiming her daughter had experienced a terrible accident and was in hospital. They even asked a woman to pretend to be her daughter by acting upset and crying from hospital over the phone. They demanded money for compensation. Olga later phoned up her daughter and found that no such accident had taken place. Her daughter was well! Olga told me "It sounded so much like my own daughter I really thought this accident had taken place! I was really worried!"
In general those kinds of fraud tend to fall into three categories. In the first category, the fraudster phones you with a business proposal where they invite you to take part in a business scheme promising you that you can earn lucrative profits. They suggest you buy shares or transfer the income to their account. They can ask you to offer them your account number. They might lure you to give more money by suggesting you send a small sum where they later transfer back to you a bigger sum and tell you that you can earn more if you send more money.
Once the victim has sent a significant sum they do a disappearing act. A famous trio deceived victims in this way for as long as almost ten years. The gang consisted of three people: Asla Malsagov, Denis Tarasov, and Aigul Finkelshlein. They tended to con the deaf. The woman Aigul, even proposed to one of the victims Maxim Livov to marry him. Winning Maxim's trust, she introduced him to a person using the name Romanov who invited him to take part in a get-rich-quick scheme. Romanov asked Maxim to send him 430,000 rubles. He did this. Then he asked for another sum. Romanov, along with Maxim's 'potential bride to be' suddenly vanished.
The same gang persuaded two pensioners to give up their apartments in Moscow in exchange for a home in Gorni Altai. They signed away their homes and were taken to a hamlet in the Kemerovskoi region of Russia. The pensioners were locked up and brought food once a week. Fortunately, the old pensioners escaped from the house, and came to a homeless shelter where a homeless worker reported the crime to the police. This, and an intensive investigation by two other victims, led to the trio being arrested and imprisoned.
And how could such a trio get away with such crimes for almost ten years? The reasons are that the police don't have anyone familiar with how to communicate with the deaf and dumb, such cases seem too complicated to pursue and the victims themselves often feel very embarrassed and awkward to approach the police. In fact, in many ways it was the independent investigation by two victims that led to the conviction of the criminals and not the initiative of the police.
In the second category, a clever method indeed is used by con-artists is to scare and intimidate victims. They threaten to put you or your relatives in prison for a non-existent crime. They can phone you up claiming that your daughter or son has been in an accident or have caused a car accident and is in hospital…
They state that if you want to avoid court action you have to transfer money to their account. Some of those people pretend to be officials or policemen. Someone can phone up a victim pretending to be an official from the Federal Service Bureau telling you that you have broken a particular law and you must pay a fine.
A 20-year-old student Natasha told me "A person told me that he was from the F.S.B. and told me I was under investigation by them for violating some law." She decided to simply ignore this ludicrous call.
In the third category, the commonly used method is the criminals claiming they are officials from the bank and that the victims either owe credit or need to transfer their money to a special account for security reasons. They might also request you need to send them your bank number and pin code to a special account. They can then proceed to rob your account. Natasha told me a con-artist had phoned up her friend telling her 'I'm from the bank. You owe us credit and are obliged to pay it." The student answered, "I am a student of law and can tell you that this is impossible. I am 19 and people under the age of 21 are not legally allowed to borrow loans from the bank." The con-artist felt flustered and appeared a hapless fool. He slammed the phone down.
State officials and the police are well aware of this problem. There is no shortage of warnings available in local newspapers, on billboards and in the metro warning people never to give information such as your bank account number, pin code or home address to strangers. As a rule, banks don't phone up their clients asking for such information and the police do not make such calls…
One notorious aspect about those callers is the vast majority of them are uneducated, speak bad Russian with the wrong emphasis on some words, tend to be rude and can often lose patience and swear at people. In contrast, most officials are supposed to speak to their clients politely, of course.
Why do so many old people fall for such scams? It could well be that they once lived in an era when crimes were not so prevalent. They grew up in a much more honest society where there was more law and order and people could leave their doors open without fear of being robbed. I used to think that such a notion was just a distant golden age fantasy. My grandmother, who grew up in Dunfermline, Scotland, reassured me this was the case.
When I myself visited Cyprus I was amazed to find that some of the local people left their doors unlocked and their windows open. That was twenty years ago. But the contrast between attitudes—and levels of crimes—in Moscow and Cyprus was staggering.
One of the terrible repercussions of those crimes is the chilling impact on some people. People can lose trust in other people. They can go to the extreme of being paranoid. They are always on alert. They might never open their doors to anyone or answer telephone calls. They might not know the names of their neighbors—and might avoid revealing any personal or household information to those neighbors. They become like the mole in Kafka's story “The Burrow” where every strange sound or word is viewed as an ominous threat. So a sense of freedom is displaced by constant fear. The person loses a carefree sense of opening up to people. A person is no longer a king of his castle but a prisoner in it. He or she has retreated into the darkest dungeon in it. Such people have traded potential friendship for better security. But the price can be forever and forlorn loneliness.
The way to counter this would be to foster a stronger sense of community by encouraging people in isolation to join clubs, groups or keep ties with other people. We have to look out for neighbors whose friends and relatives have either died leaving them in complete isolation. There are simply some people who have nobody to turn to at all!
It is small wonder that such lonely people might make the error of trusting potential con-artists! Loneliness can often lead to two alternatives: you can either lose your mind—or learn to be patient. In the former you can either deeply distrust people or become very gullible. But in choosing the latter one might indeed wonder “How patient can anyone be?”
Criminals committing this sort of fraud unfortunately often target the very persons who are the most vulnerable--and who have the least money to spare. More warnings and information about this sort of crime needs to be communicated to those persons most susceptible.
Telephones—meant for communication and for calling for “help” in emergencies have become a tool for criminals!
.
.
Acknowledged sources:
.
I thank friends and acquaintances who have informed me about their experiences such as Evgeny, Natalie P., Olga and my wife Svetlana.
I also acknowledge the brilliant article by Anna Sokolova in “Arguments and Facts” titled “Neither hearing nor Conscience,’ Number 2420 23
I point to an article in “Mockovskii Komsomolets,” by Olga Grekova and Anton Razmakhnin, “On The Edge,” 18.10-24.102023, number 194 {640} page 12, which offers a detailed account of the methods and characters of con-artists which is also confirmed by my interviews with people. The above articles are written in Russian.