Russians have become more likely to encounter financial pyramids

In the first quarter of this year, 23% of Russians surveyed faced various financial pyramids. In the same analyzed period in 2024, there were almost half as many such respondents - 11%. This is stated in the results of the <url> financial marketplace research, which was reviewed by Izvestia on April 16.

At the same time, 68% encountered projects that show signs of a financial pyramid in the Telegram channel, another 19% - in other social networks, 8% became victims of the promotion of acquaintances, and 5% visited the offline offices of intruders.

At the same time, 33% of respondents admitted that they were looking for a job on the Internet and came across relevant resources, 21% were in investment groups and ended up in spam mailings, 23% of users came to the "product" when they were looking for business courses, and 16% were contacted by pyramid "curators" themselves.

Experts found that in 29% of cases, the projects faced by Russians had a clear investment theme. The supervisors who contacted the respondents suggested investing in cryptocurrency. 22% of the respondents noted that they were offered to take various kinds of business courses and trainings on raising money.

Go into negative territory: how scammers deceive Russians under the pretext of investing

The attackers send out offers even on dating sites.

In addition, 17% of respondents said that the attackers offered to make purchases with a "guaranteed" high cashback, and 14% offered to participate in economic games where they could supposedly earn real money by developing a virtual business. Another 12% offered jobs with high salaries, involving simple user actions on the Internet.

However, fewer citizens suffered from financial pyramids than a year earlier. Thus, only 9% of those who encountered fraudsters invested money in illegal projects, compared to 24% of such respondents last year. At the same time, in 2025, on average, the victim lost 15 thousand rubles, in 2024 - 55 thousand rubles.

"This year, women aged 35 to 45 turned out to be the most susceptible to the beliefs of intruders, last year the palm tree in this parameter belonged to men aged 40 to 45 years," the analysts said.

Earlier, on April 2, it was reported that one in five Russians (21%) was deceived in the digital space, and 13% of respondents became victims of scams in real life, offline. Half of the respondents (50%) fell for the tricks of intruders both on and off the Internet. At the same time, 16% of the survey participants have never experienced fraud either online or offline. This is stated in the results of a study of the <url> service.