The scammers began offering to exchange cash for a digital ruble at a "special course"

On the eve of the launch of the digital ruble, fraudsters began to convince Russians to transfer money to a new electronic currency, promising a favorable exchange rate and offering to use supposedly special accounts or the services of fake couriers. This was announced on August 30 by Evgeny Masharov, a member of the commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation for public control and work with citizens' appeals.

"Fraudsters are calling on behalf of representatives of a citizen's bank or the Bank of Russia with an offer to immediately transfer funds deposited in accounts to a digital ruble. Allegedly, if you don't have time to do this now, then after a certain date it will be unprofitable to exchange the money, but now you can transfer it to a "special account" at a one-to-one rate," he said in an interview with TASS.

According to him, scammers can also claim that cash will allegedly stop circulating after this date, and offer to exchange it in advance for digital rubles through fictitious exchangers or with the help of couriers.

Masharov said that after a citizen agrees to transfer money to a so-called "special account", fraudsters can send him an SMS code to confirm his identity on the Gosuslugi portal. After receiving the code, the attackers stop communicating, and the citizen's personal data is compromised. According to him, contacting a fictitious exchanger or transferring cash to a fake courier also leads to a loss of money — a person remains without cash and without a digital ruble.

It is clarified that the attackers are sending SMS messages to Russians claiming that a digital ruble wallet has already been opened in the recipient's name, which from September 1, 2026 will become mandatory for paying for purchases, receiving salaries, social benefits and transfers. Masharov noted that clicking on the link indicated in the message may lead to the installation of a malicious program on a smartphone capable of accessing the user's personal and banking information.

Masharov explained that the digital ruble represents funds in a special wallet hosted on the Bank of Russia platform, and not in a commercial bank. At the same time, the transition to digital currency is voluntary — citizens are not required to open such a wallet. To receive cash, digital rubles must first be transferred to a regular bank account, after which the money can be withdrawn through an ATM or at the bank's cash desk. The conversion is carried out at a one-to-one rate.

The expert clarified that the digital ruble allows you to make payments, transfers and other operations, but it is impossible to open a deposit or apply for a loan with it. According to him, the introduction of the digital ruble will begin on September 1.

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On August 23, Sergey Shcherbakov, technical director of the Stakhanovets software development company, reported that fraudsters, before the mass launch of the digital ruble, could begin to impersonate Central Bank employees and convince Russians to urgently transfer savings into digital rubles to save them. According to the expert, fraudsters can create phishing websites, applications that are clones of the digital ruble wallet and fake QR codes to substitute payments.