The most frequent scenarios of phone scammers in 2024 have been named
The most frequent scenario of telephone fraud in 2024 was the offer to allegedly extend the contract with the telecom operator. This follows from the data of the company "Yandex", which were read by "Izvestia" on January 20.
"In the overall structure of fraudulent calls, this scenario takes 44%. The user is informed allegedly on behalf of the operator about the end of the contract. In order to continue the work of communication or Internet, it is necessary to "extend the contract" and report the code from the SMS-message", - said the experts.
Another common scheme is two-stage pressure on the user (20%). As explained in the company, the first call gives the user a clear indication that a fraudster is talking to him. After that, a second call arrives, allegedly from a bank representative, who offers to secure accounts after the scammer's call.
It is also common for scammers to promise to issue or increase benefits, increase the size of pensions or recalculate payments taking into account previously missed seniority or data. Such calls occur in 16% of cases.
In addition, attackers during a phone call offer to unblock an account allegedly blocked due to suspicious activity, for example, on "Gosuslugi" or in the bank (11%).
There is also a scheme with a message about the delivery of a letter from a post office or delivery service (5%). Fraudsters inform about an allegedly received registered letter, for the delivery of which it is necessary to name a code from SMS.
The company said that in 2024, Yandex's automatic caller ID processed almost 1.5 billion phone calls from unknown numbers. 800 million of them were unwanted, including fraudulent ones. Compared to 2023, their share increased by 16% and amounted to 56% of the total number.
According to the automatic caller ID service, the biggest increase in unwanted calls over the year came from calls from banks and calls from fraudsters disguised as bank employees - their number increased by 25%. The number of calls offering insurance services increased by 21%. By 17.5% - the number of calls with "surveys", for example, to assess the quality of service. At the same time, more than 2 million calls from unknown numbers were received by users in messengers - 5% of them users marked as unwanted. These included calls allegedly from banks and law enforcement agencies.
According to the company, in 2024 the number of calls from unknown numbers increased most of all in Penza region - by 86% compared to 2023, as well as in Primorsky Krai by 22% and Rostov region by 20%. This indicator decreased the most in the Chechen Republic - by 80%, North Ossetia - by 50% and Transbaikal Territory - by 35%.
Earlier, on December 19, in the Coordination Center of domains .RU/.RF told "Izvestia" that at the end of 2024, fraudsters' attacks on Telegram users increased 19 times. In November-December, their number amounted to more than a thousand, while in the same period of 2023, only 54 cases were recorded. Attackers use a variety of schemes to hack into user accounts: fake social payments for holidays, New Year sales, cheap tickets to Christmas trees, concerts and performances.
