Banks and microfinance organizations often become objects of interest for dishonest citizens. The share of fraudsters who want to get a loan and not repay it, according to the Equifax credit history bureau, remains virtually unchanged from year to year. Usually the creditor understands that he has given money to a fraudster after the conclusion of the agreement. The first sign of fraud is the absence of at least one payment on the debt and the overdue period reaching the critical point of 60-90 days. The second sign is the borrower’s reluctance to enter into a dialogue with a bank or microfinance organization about resolving the debt situation.
There are four types of fraudulent loans, the shares of which are approximately comparable. The first type is issuing loans using lost and forged documents, the second is obtaining a trade loan for cashing out, the third is issuing loans to other persons under pressure or for a fee, the fourth is issuing a loan using a photocopy of a passport.
More than 45% of fraudulent loans are issued to people aged approximately 30 years. Increasingly, attackers who intend to deceive the creditor indicate “married” status in the “marital status” column, report having a higher education and use new “clean” work and mobile phones.
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The most unexpected trend in recent years is the increase in the number of women in the ranks of criminals.
A fraudster can be identified by abnormal behavior: the presence of many applications with changes in personal data, changes in document numbers when resubmitting an application, frequent changes of addresses and telephone numbers, and so on.
What can scammers do if they take possession of your SNILS and passport data?
- They can transfer the funded part of your pension to another non-state pension fund.
- They will be able to draw up a loan agreement in your name, veiled as an agreement for the provision of insurance services (if you, without reading, also signed some papers as a plus).
In addition, scammers can take out loans from microfinance organizations, even without SNILS . Just according to passport data and TIN, the main thing is that the attackers have all the information from the first page, including a photo and signature.
Intelligent scammers
Fraudsters are finding effective ways to counter the means lenders use to identify them. They are becoming smarter and more resourceful, rarely working alone and prefer to use “kits” of fake documents in an attempt to impersonate the ideal borrower. As a rule, the lifespan of a “passport” for such a trained fraudster is very short and amounts to one or two days.
If you try to draw a portrait of a typical, mass fraudster for the capital region, it will be a 32-year-old bachelor with a higher education and a salary of 55,000 rubles per month. He purchases modern mobile phones with a memory capacity of 128 GB and a cost of more than 30,000 rubles on credit and hides from the sight of gullible creditors. Most often, typical fraudulent loans, according to statistics, are issued in the middle of the day on Monday.
Does SNILS give access to personal information and in particular to a person’s income?
Reference . Knowing the insurance certificate number, you cannot gain access to either the personal information or the income of the insured person. An exception may be the situation if you used your SNILS number as a login on a government services website.
Theoretically, an experienced hacker can gain access to your personal account in this case . The maximum that he can do there is to find out the amount of your pension contributions, from which you can calculate the amount of your basic income and use this information in some illegal actions.
But if you encounter a truly “serious” hacker (although this is unlikely, because these are very expensive specialists), he has many ways to obtain information about you, not counting SNILS.
Own assessment of the counterparty using the Internet
A counterparty is one of the parties to a contract in legal documents. For example, you contacted a certain company that provides security services. To draw up a contract for services, a person may be required to provide passport data.
But before doing this, it is recommended to conduct your own small independent investigation. Use search engines and other means to check whether the company can be trusted. Perhaps its existence is only a formality.
If you were able to find only a couple of pages of the company’s social networks on the Internet, but the site no longer opens at the address, you should think about whether you need to start cooperation. Carefully check the information about the company that requires your passport information.
Pay attention to the site address if a copy of documents is required via the Internet. Look only for official company addresses and be suspicious of any requests for personal information.
Fraud schemes
Why, then, are so many scammers hunting for insurance numbers? Why did almost every Russian encounter them in one way or another? It's simple: according to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, the future pension of citizens born in 1967 will consist of two parts: insurance and funded.
It is impossible for any scammers to encroach on the insurance part of the pension. But a person can invest the funded part of their pension . This can be done by entrusting the management of funds to a state management company or a non-state fund.
It is useless to report them to the police: they will tell you that they are agents of a non-state pension fund and there is nothing illegal in their actions. They are simply advertising their services.
But there are also scammers among them. Some of them ask for personal information only to cover up openly fraudulent schemes to extort real money. And due to the actions of “honest” agents, whose actions do not fall under any article, you are deprived of the investment income you are entitled to from investing the funded part of your future pension.
Let's look at the most popular fraud schemes using SNILS in real life and on the Internet.
"The most profitable NPF"
One of these tactics is based on the fact that the NPF takes care in advance of promoting its own or a fake website. And when the agent honestly reports which NPF he is advocating for making a choice, then you need to look for information on the Internet.
Using a search engine for a specific request, you can find a rating of pension funds in which the advertised one is at the top. And only after studying the sources in more detail, you can understand that the rating was compiled and promoted by a hired advertising agency . After large-scale customer acquisition, the “analytical” site is no longer supported.
What is the danger? Agents are silent that:
- You could choose a safer fund.
- Transfer funds from the funded part of the pension to public administration.
- Also, you will not be informed that you are losing investment income from funds invested in another NPF or from government administration, since 5 years have not yet passed since the start of your previous pension insurance contract.
Help : you can change your insurer annually, but you can change your insurer while maintaining the accumulated interest - once every five years.
"Recruitment agencies"
A person finds an advertisement for a job in a very broad specialty , for example, a manager, and calls the advertisement. He is invited for an interview. They say that you must have your passport and SNILS with you.
At the interview, he is told that this vacancy has already been filled, but a similar one will appear soon. To speed up the employment process, you need to fill out a questionnaire, an application (this turns out to be an application to transfer the funded part of the pension to a specific fund).
A copy of SNILS and passport is made from the unsuspecting applicant. After leaving the agency, the person waits for some time, calls himself, but is told that the vacancy has not appeared. But after a while, a letter arrives from the NPF thanking you for choosing the fund .
Naturally, if the fund turns out to be conscientious and quite profitable, then feeling deceived, the person who realized what had happened leaves it after a year. He is not informed that there was a loss of interest.
“Your bank cares about you”
Even banks do not hesitate to lure people into their pension fund . Many borrowers who took out a consumer loan or mortgage became their clients. Indeed, it is difficult to resist a polite, pretty girl or young man with whom a loan agreement has already been signed on what seem to be very favorable terms. Bank employees will convince you that by concluding such an agreement with the bank, you will ensure the best future for yourself.
They will tell you that their bank is the most reliable. He stands firmly on the ground. And you, receiving your pension in the future right in this window, will be able to receive income from your own pension investments. It will be easier for you to control the actions of the bank. They do not inform you that you are most likely losing your previous investment income.
Important! You can get into such processing not only at the bank, but also when buying equipment, furniture, a telephone, a car - with any purchase on credit.
A credit expert will tell you about all the benefits of investing in pensions through a bank, keeping silent, of course, about possible losses.
"Play"
Agents imitate representatives of government officials and even law enforcement agencies . Sometimes they present themselves as employees of the Pension Fund (without specifying that it is non-state). Cases are described when they crumple the abbreviation FPS (Pension Insurance Fund) to “PPS” and show their IDs in order to play on the law-abiding nature of citizens, to stop them and attract attention.
Then one of the many performances is performed. It is possible that tomorrow a new, not yet used type of fraud will be tested, how to convince citizens to give up their personal data in order to transfer their savings to the next NPF.
Which “performances” are already known:
- Agents ask if you received a letter from the Pension Fund this year?
You should have been told that if there is no application from you, your pension money will “burn out.” - No? Give me your SNILS, I'll check it against the database! Once they receive the number, they call the database operator to check whether you are currently in their fund as a result of the actions of your predecessors. Some threaten with a fine for failure to comply with the law. - The agent introduces himself as the “senior in the area” in matters of social/pension security or as an employee of the management company who monitors the implementation of the state program.
May pose as a financial advisor. He will very competently tell you about 6% of your deductions and why you need to manage them right now. Your losses in this case will be similar to the previous schemes. However, by signing an agreement with a fund that you are hearing about for the first time, you may transfer your money to an unscrupulous organization.
Having collected enough clients and received some income, such funds withdraw money abroad and go bankrupt.
Of course, according to current legislation, the funded part of your pension is insured. As a result, it will be paid by the Bank of Russia, however, without any interest that would otherwise be possible in a different scenario.
In addition to door-to-door visits, such people are looking for victims:
- for offices, shops, pharmacies;
- summer cottages in garden cooperatives;
- They wait for victims near clinics, metro stations, and shopping centers.
Attention : currently, people who have already chosen a non-state pension fund or left their savings in state management can receive investment income from investments only if they do not change the fund for 5 years. This deadline has not passed since 2015.
According to the Pension Fund, 99% of citizens who transferred their pensions to the management of another NPF in 2017 did so at a detriment to themselves.
Where to report data theft?
If you become aware of such theft, you should immediately notify the police. Even if there is no evidence of fraud yet, you should not wait for it to happen. If your personal data has been misused, the offender will face at least an administrative fine. Criminal prosecution up to and including imprisonment is possible.
It would be a good idea to contact an experienced lawyer who will help you not only correctly draw up a statement to the police, but also prove the fact of their illegal transfer to a third party.
If you have become a victim of fraud, including the use of your passport data, please contact the specialists of our company. They will provide legal assistance even in the most complex and confusing cases, which will allow criminals to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Schemes on the Internet
"Employment"
In addition to fraud in real life, phone calls, “recruitment officers” can catch up with you on the Internet on employment sites .
During an interview over the Internet, “personnel services” may insist on filling out a false application form with a SNILS number.
Their goal is the same as in real life - to transfer pension savings to a non-state pension fund.
"State website"
Fraudsters can request SNILS along with other data in order to imitate a government service website on the Internet. Such sites can have several goals:
- collection of personal data for the transfer of the funded part of the pension;
- collection of personal data to form databases that can be sold.
"Payments"
A separate type of fraud is a site for paying for non-existent services to receive non-existent payments; You can be attracted to such a site with the help of an enticing banner or letter. You are asked to check whether you are entitled to certain payments from certain insurance funds .
Then they ask you to enter SNILS. After checking the data on the insurance number, the site provides information that you need to receive a substantial amount, about 100 thousand rubles. Then they will be asked to pay for the services of insurers, followed by other payments for data analysis services. Finally the man realizes that he is being deceived. Naturally, he does not receive any payments.
By studying the articles of our experts, you will be able to protect yourself and your loved ones from various types of fraud: corporate, financial, abuse of official position, involving a legal entity, in the areas of business, lending and computer information, as well as by telephone and other new schemes.
How to protect yourself
The advice here can be given as universal - do not throw away your passport data in dubious places and generally do not show off copies of the document once again. Especially on the Internet, because what once appeared on the Internet will certainly be preserved in the archives and will remain there for a long time. Of course, in most cases of fraud, you can easily prove your innocence, but no one will restore the time and nerves you spent on this.
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Important Tips
To avoid falling into the trap of scammers, you must remember:
- Pension Fund employees never go door to door and check SNILS numbers.
- Pension Fund employees do not stand at the metro station or walk around work offices.
- You are not entitled to any payments that you do not know about. In any case, do not trust one source.
To find out which fund your pension savings are currently in:
- you can make a request on the government services website;
- request information in person, by mail or using the online form on the Pension Fund website.
To find out the status of your pension account, you need to contact the Russian Pension Fund. But if you transferred your funds to a non-state pension fund, then it provides information about the status of your account.
Forgery of a real passport
State and large financial institutions pay closer attention to the personal data of citizens. But there are institutions with reduced interest in citizens’ passports. These include mobile phone shops. A minor change in appearance, and a person can come with such a passport to apply for a new SIM card.
He can also, upon request, receive a printout of phone calls and SMS made recently. From it it will be clear to the fraudster which banks you use and how often.
Important personal data in the wrong hands can at any time create a lot of problems for the real owner of the passport.
Therefore, you need to be as careful as possible with them: do not present them to dubious companies and persons, do not leave them on the Internet.
What to do if attackers got your SNILS number? Step-by-step instruction
- Calm down. If attackers have received your SNILS number, they will not be able to cause immediate damage. Even if an agreement is drawn up on your behalf to transfer savings to another NPF, fund employees will most likely call you to make sure that you really wrote such a statement.
- Just in case, change your login and password on the government services website.
- Then immediately contact your pension fund and write a written statement of your intention not to transfer the funded portion of your pension to any fund for a year.
- Submit a similar application to the Pension Fund by contacting them in person, by mail, through an online application or through the MFC. It is easier to cancel the transfer to an unscrupulous NPF while the funds have not yet been transferred.
If, as a result of unlawful actions, your funds were nevertheless transferred to a non-state fund, after five years you can transfer them to the state administration or to another fund while maintaining the accumulated interest. There is a procedure for early transfer of funds - the next year after writing the application. Investment income for this period, alas, will be lost.
Important . If you believe that the transfer was made unlawfully and want to return your savings to the previous fund in an accelerated manner along with interest, then you will have to defend this right in court.
What to write on a copy of your passport to protect yourself
Gradually, all government agencies are switching to interacting with citizens online. And willy-nilly, users have to leave passport data on sites such as State Services. Users may be required to provide digital copies of their passport. But before sending, you can sign them - for what purpose the documents were uploaded.
That is, the name of the government agency, the purpose of downloading the copy. For example, “Copy for .
The owner of the document must ensure that the copies do not contain images. This can be a big problem for scammers on their way to obtaining loans and other benefits from your personal data. Do not store them on a computer that could potentially become a target for spyware.
