Russians were told about the growing number of children involved in fraud

The number of children injured or involved in fraud has increased by 30% in Russia. This was announced on November 16 by Stanislav Kuznetsov, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank.

"There is a dangerous and, unfortunately, growing trend: scammers are increasingly targeting children and teenagers. The number of such cases has increased by 30% in two years," he told RIA Novosti.

Kuznetsov said that the scammers have three criminal schemes. The first is to convince a child to secretly take their parents' phone and transfer money from their banking apps to someone else's account.

"To do this, the fraudster gains the victim's trust by using game worlds, for example, through chat rooms in games, on social networks or messengers, and offers to profitably exchange game currency, rare virtual items or skins," explained a representative of Sberbank.

In the second scheme, the fraudster introduces himself on behalf of government agencies, informs the child that his parents have unaccounted-for jewelry and money, and demands that they be handed over to the courier, ostensibly for an "official declaration."

Kuznetsov recommended conducting financial security lessons with children and telling them about passwords, SMS codes and bank cards.

"Agree on a family code word that the child should be asked to name if someone introduces themselves to you and asks you to do something with the money. Create a trusting atmosphere so that the child turns to you in any incomprehensible situation, and not to a stranger online," he said.

The magic word: experts have named the easiest way to protect against fraudsters

A code word selected according to specific criteria will help users.

On November 4, Senator Artem Sheikin made a proposal to introduce a special children's SIM card regime in order to protect minors from fraudsters and Internet threats. He cited as an example the experience of creating a system of whitelisted services in Russia with temporary limitations of the mobile Internet and suggested using such a mechanism to create a special children's SIM card mode, when the child's phone works only with verified contacts and websites, and in case of suspicious calls, notification is automatically sent to parents.

Later, on November 5, the head of the Ministry of Finance, Maksut Shadaev, announced the appearance of children's SIM cards in Russia. According to him, parents will be able to track the whereabouts of their children and will not need to submit an official application for this. They will be issued with the consent of the parents.

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