The number of Russians facing online fraud increased in 2024

Last year, 7.7 thousand people applied to the Center for Legal Assistance to Citizens in the Digital Environment in 2024. This was reported to Izvestia in the center on March 11. The lawyers managed to return over 31 million rubles to the victims.

The vast majority of applicants are victims of fraudsters. In 2024, their number reached almost 6 thousand people.

"The number of applicants has more than doubled compared to 2023 - 7.7 thousand people needed help. Most of the requests — 77% — are related to digital fraud, but there were requests for consultations on other issues, such as the protection of honor, dignity and business reputation, and the protection of personal data," they noted.

Lawyers helped to cancel 45 court decisions on debt collection under loan agreements. The courts have invalidated loan agreements totaling over 1.5 million rubles. At the same time, experts last year helped to return to the victim of fraudsters a record amount — more than 22 million rubles, which were stolen from the applicant's bank accounts using forged documents.

In unpaid debt: Russians will be exempt from payments on loans issued by fraudsters

The condition will be the initiation of a criminal case.

"In total, the lawyers managed to return over 31 million rubles to the victims in a pre-trial order, and more than 1 million rubles in court. The total amount of compensation for moral damage amounted to over 1.3 million rubles — the court decided on such a penalty, for example, in the case of disclosure of personal information by a delivery service or in the case of data processing that did not meet the purposes of their collection," the center added.

The Center for Legal Assistance to Citizens in the Digital Environment was established on the initiative of Roskomnadzor by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Main Radio Frequency Center in September 2021 to provide free legal assistance to Russians to protect their rights and legitimate interests in connection with the processing of their personal data.

Earlier, on March 7, it was reported that among the Russians surveyed, 11% of respondents faced fraud related to fake invitations to house chats via QR codes. This is one of the deception methods that allows you to steal the victim's personal data, including hacking her Telegram account. Also, 7% received fake QR codes to pay for goods and services online, and 4% received fake bills for housing and communal services. This is stated in the results of a survey conducted by the financial marketplace <url>.