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- Deceptive feelings: how scammers speculate on the topic of psychological help
Deceptive feelings: how scammers speculate on the topic of psychological help
Online scammers can use the subject of psychological help to deceive Russians, experts have warned about this. In autumn and early winter, people are more likely to experience a decrease in mood, seasonal fatigue and anxiety. At this time, the demand for psychological services is growing, and scammers synchronize their activity with it. Read the Izvestia article for details on what psychological assistance schemes to expect from intruders at the end of 2026, what are the dangers of such tricks and how to protect yourself from them.
Why is the subject of psychological assistance interesting to scammers
In autumn and early winter, people are more likely to experience a decrease in mood, seasonal fatigue and anxiety, says Elena Zavodova, head of the audit and compliance department at the IT company Ural Center for Security Systems (UCSB), in an interview with Izvestia.
— A person seeking psychological help is in a state of stress or crisis, — says the expert. — He is focused on internal conflicts and worries, his critical thinking is reduced, and the need for a quick solution to the problem is great. This is what the attackers use.
Increased workloads, financial worries and summing up personal results also play into the hands of scammers at the end of the year, said Alexander Vinokurov, technical account manager at R-Vision. Against this background, people are more likely to seek psychological support, including through social networks and messengers. For attackers, this is an opportunity to disguise fraudulent activity as a sought—after service and build trusting contact with a potential victim.
What schemes on the topic of psychological assistance should we expect at the end of 2026
In November and December 2026, according to Alexander Vurasko, Director of Development at the Solar AURA External Digital Threat Monitoring Center (Solar Group), fake pages of psychologists and specialist recruitment services should be expected first of all. A person may be offered a free acquaintance, after which they will be required to urgently pay for a package of consultations or an "individual program."
"Discounts on escorts until the end of the year and promises to solve all problems by the holidays can be a seasonal lure," the expert notes. — This is a forecast of the adaptation of well—known techniques - promises of benefits and artificial time limits for decisions, which the Bank of Russia regularly describes.
Another possible scenario is phishing under the guise of registering for a consultation, passing a test, or joining a closed support group, the editorial source continues. For example, the user may be asked to send the login code to the messenger, explaining this by confirming the entry. The goal here is no longer money for consultations, but access to an account. A similar substitution of psychological testing with a phishing procedure has previously been encountered in attacks on teenagers.
In addition, at the end of 2026, attackers may offer free emotional state testing or online stress management courses, according to Anna Vyatkina, an analyst at the Positive Technologies research group. In such cases, social media ads, fake psychological services sites, and messenger bots are used to attract users.
— One of the possible scenarios is that a person is offered to take a short test or fill out a questionnaire to select a psychologist, — explains the specialist. — After that, the victim is asked to register on a third-party website, make an advance payment for the consultation, or confirm the recording with an SMS code. In this way, attackers can obtain the user's personal and payment data or access to his account.
Chatbots based on artificial intelligence can also be used for such schemes, the expert believes. They are able to maintain a long-term dialogue, adjust to a person's responses, and create the impression of communicating with a real consultant. In the future, scammers can use the trust they have gained to convince the victim to click on a malicious link or transfer money.
What schemes on the topic of psychological assistance have you encountered before
Meanwhile, online scammers in Russia have tried to speculate on the topic of psychological help before. In particular, in 2025, the Ministry of Internal Affairs warned about scammers who posed as school and university psychologists, recalls Vladislav Shelepov, GSOC threat analyst at Gazinformservice. Under the pretext of mandatory testing, the attackers sent phishing links and then tried to get money.
— In the summer of 2026, it was reported about scammers who posed as employees of public psychological centers and offered free consultations, — says the interlocutor of Izvestia. — After the consent, the person was sent a link to a fake page for collecting personal data. There were also cases when the attackers simply posed as qualified specialists.
The potential audience of such schemes is people in a state of emotional discomfort, anxiety or exhaustion who are looking for quick solutions and are less inclined to check the qualifications of specialists, says Sergey Shcherbakov, technical director of Stakhanovets, an expert in the field of information security and IT. At the same time, teenagers constitute a separate category of possible victims of "psychological" schemes.
Among the risks of such tricks, the specialist identifies psychological damage: a person in a vulnerable state seeks help, faces deception and loses confidence in the very possibility of receiving it. People who turn to pseudopsychologists often talk about money spent and endless anxiety. Teenagers have added to this fear of their parents and a sense of guilt, which scammers use to deter the victim. When a person is exhausted and receives pseudotherapy instead of support, the consequences are worse than losing money, Sergei Shcherbakov emphasizes.
How to protect yourself from the schemes of scammers on the topic of psychological help
In order to protect themselves from fraudulent schemes on the subject of psychological assistance, experts interviewed by Izvestia advise following certain safety rules. In particular, Alexandra Shmigirilova, GR director of the Security Code Information Technology company, recalls that psychology is exactly the same field of medicine as ophthalmology, for example, and when seeking such help, the main thing is not to harm yourself.
"Users need to focus not on popular bloggers who call themselves psychologists, but on specific clinics, psychological approaches, and feedback from loved ones," she urges. — You can also use special aggregator services, on such sites psychologists must provide up-to-date documents, confirm their qualifications and guarantee transparency of payment.
Psychologists who work for themselves should also provide papers in which they talk about their approach, the process of work, confidentiality, payment methods and procedures, continues Alexandra Shmigirilova. Moreover, a good marker of a specialist's reliability would be the presence of self-employment or sole proprietorship. If the psychologist asks you to simply transfer money to the account, you should be wary.
It is important to check it through independent sources (registries, professional associations, personal recommendations) and pay attention to the site address — even one extra character in the domain should alert you, adds Georgy Kucherin, senior Kaspersky GReAT expert. You should not fill out detailed questionnaires on questionable resources, send SMS codes, or rush to pay under the pretext of "last places."
— Any attempt to create a sense of urgency or a prohibition to "not tell anyone" is a sure sign of fraud. For reliability, we recommend installing a security solution that will block attempts to click on suspicious links and download malicious software," concludes the Izvestia interlocutor.
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