How scammers operate on Avito - prepayment scam, delivery fraud

Fraud refers to the theft of other people's money through deception or abuse of trust. With the development of technology, scammers have moved to the Internet. It is easier to work online because of anonymity.

The Avito website is very popular. It allows you to sell things that have become unnecessary and buy anything at attractive prices. Of course, there are scammers on Avito. They work according to the same fraudulent schemes, which you need to know in order not to become a victim of scammers. Next, we’ll tell you how to recognize a scammer on Avito.

Scam on Avito - transfer money to card

Many people think that only sellers engage in fraud on Avito. This is wrong. There are many scammers among imaginary buyers. A favorite method of fraud on Avito is transferring money to a card. The scheme is simple: a buyer from Avito responds to an ad and says that he can transfer all the money for the goods to the card right now. Next, he uses all possible means to lure personal data from the seller. Moreover, the fraudster often only needs to know the card number, expiration date and the three-digit code indicated on the back.

With this method of fraud on Avito, such as transferring money to a card, the imaginary buyer flatly refuses to pay for the purchase by cash on delivery and is not particularly interested in the properties of the product. This should alert the seller.

A scammer on Avito asks for a card number

If scammers on Avito insist on transferring to a card, do not provide anything other than its 12-digit number. To send money to a card, the buyer does not need your full name or the expiration date of the credit card, especially since the code on the back is not needed. You are definitely dealing with a scammer if he demands to know the code from the SMS that came to your phone linked to the card.

Note!

Fraudsters may have two goals: to make purchases using your card in online stores (not all of them require a three-digit code, the number and expiration date are enough) or to log into online banking on your behalf.

The fact that it is scammers on Avito who are asking for a card number can be determined by the following signs:

• lack of interest in the product;
• desire to pay for the purchase immediately;
• categorical refusal of personal meeting and cash on delivery.

Scam on Avito with prepayment to the card

The most common method of fraud used by scammers on Avito is a scam involving prepayment to a card. It is also popular on other classifieds sites and online stores. Let's look at what the scam is on Avito with prepayment to a card. Under various pretexts, the fraudulent seller asks to transfer part of the cost of the goods to him. For example, a buyer became interested in an advertisement for the sale of a car. He calls the seller and finds out that there is already a line of people waiting for the car. To reserve a vehicle, you just need to transfer a ridiculous amount to the card - a couple of thousand rubles. Of course, a person who wants to buy a car at a profit agrees to a tempting offer, and in the end he is left without an advance payment and without a car.

It cannot be said that only scammers on Avito ask for a transfer to a card, but often this indicates the criminal intentions of the seller. In such cases, you need to ask for a personal meeting.

Note!

If the seller asks you to transfer money to your mobile phone, you are definitely dealing with a scam on Avito with prepayment.

How to protect yourself from intruders

To prevent scammers on Avito from carrying out their plan, you must follow a number of simple rules:

1. Never give your passport details to unfamiliar buyers or sellers from Avito.
2. The CVC code of the card is prohibited even for bank employees. Therefore, if under any pretext they want to know the code, they are definitely scammers.
3. It is forbidden to say passwords and codes that come in SMS messages from various services.
4. When concluding a rental agreement for premises, you must carefully study the title documents. Be sure to require originals. If they are not there and only copies are provided, this is a sure sign of a fraudulent scheme.
5. Before making a call regarding employment, you must check the specified phone number through the search. If this is indeed the phone number of a company that has a vacancy, this phone number should be listed on its official website.
6. There are numbers whose tariffs for calls are significantly different from calls to regular mobile devices. Scammers' phones on Avit charge a fee for callers and in some cases the tariff is more than 200 rubles per minute.
7. Fraudsters do not allow the victim to think and make the right, adequate decision. They offer tempting conditions and begin to rush the answer. You need to calm down, think everything over and check the available information.

Avito - delivery scam

It often happens that the seller and buyer are in different cities. Of course, no owner would trust a stranger and send the goods to nowhere without money. Therefore, even conscientious sellers ask for advance payment. To check if you are dealing with delivery fraud on Avito, call the seller on behalf of the buyer from the same city and make an appointment. If he agrees, most likely you are dealing with a bona fide owner.

If you have friends in another city, ask them to pick up the goods and send them to you by mail. This method is much more reliable. Or agree with the author of the advertisement about delivery by courier service. In this case, the courier simply will not give you the goods until you pay for it. Both the seller and the buyer win. However, discuss in advance who will pay for delivery and which courier service will use it.

Story No. 1. Defenseless seller

I have a friend, let’s call him Ivan, who has been using Avito for a long time, buys and sells a lot on the service. Knows about all the different deception schemes during a personal meeting before buying/selling.

The person is very attentive and meticulous, so you will have to try very hard to deceive him. Why such a preface? So that you understand that the story told below happened to an experienced seller , and not to someone who was just on his first day on Avito.

A friend has another sale, the buyer asks to send the goods by Avito Delivery. Ivan packs the goods, takes a photo of the parcel and leaves the Russian Post. The buyer accepts the goods and for some reason refuses it, Ivan waits for the return delivery, and then goes to the post office again.

Parcel and box of chocolates

When he receives the parcel, he films the process of unpacking and receiving it on video and instead of a conventional smartphone, he sees there a package from the phone and candies stuffed into it .

Ivan is not at a loss, he asks the post office to issue an acceptance certificate with a description of everything that has arrived. Along with this act, a video of packaging and a video of unpacking, he is sent to Avito.Support, where he is asked to wait over and over again.

Acceptance certificate

A few months later, he is denied compensation because there is no video showing that it was the buyer who replaced the order. That is, even if you bother, collect all the evidence and prepare well, you still run the risk of becoming a victim of scammers.

Why is this happening?

When registering for Avito.Delivery, the buyer pays for the purchase immediately, but the service keeps the money until the buyer confirms that the goods have arrived and everything is in order. However, the goods are delivered by Russian Post or Boxberry, where employees do not care what the buyer does with the parcel during the inspection period.

How could this be resolved?

Either agree with Russian Post and Boxberry that their employees specifically monitor customers during checks and include this work in the service commission upon delivery, or organize your own pick-up points, where Avito employees will check that there are no substitutions .

The third option is to transfer money to the buyer only after the seller confirms that everything is in order with the package (although this option may provoke new types of fraud).

Link to story

Scammers on Avito via SMS

Sometimes scammers act not on behalf of the seller or buyer, but on behalf of the site administration. The person who posted the ad receives an SMS to the number with a link supposedly to the Avito website, which they need to follow. The reasons may be different: a blocked ad, a new response, etc. If you receive such a message, do not click on the link. Log into your personal account through a browser and check whether the account is really blocked or whether new responses have been received. Clicking on the link risks infecting your device with a virus and stealing passwords from online banking.

It would be a good idea to contact the Avito support service and report that fraudulent SMS messages are coming from a certain number.

Do you have any questions?

To get the most detailed advice on your issue, you just need to follow any of the suggested options:

• Request a consultation using the form
  on our website
• Or just call the number: 8 800 350-83-74

How to recognize a scammer on Avito?

To avoid becoming a victim of fraud on Avito, carefully study sellers’ advertisements. It is better not to deal with recently created accounts, not to call on advertisements from other cities, as well as advertisements that do not have a photo of the product. You should be wary if the price is too low compared to the market price. A sign of a scammer on Avito is also a refusal to meet in person and a requirement to book the product by making an advance payment.

Another criterion is communication only by email or social networks. The account must contain the user's phone number. If he is unavailable for a long time or does not respond, this is a reason to be wary.

Note!

Please note any inconsistencies in the ad. For example, your profile may indicate the name Nikolai, but in fact you are communicating with a girl named Maria.

How to act to avoid scammers on Avito:

• ask to film the product;
• use cash on delivery;
• check prices.

Site overview

Avito is the most popular service in Russia for all kinds of advertisements/offers, services/products. It also operates outside our country, but within its borders it has tens of thousands of different offers in literally every city. It is extremely simple and clear to use, because everything simple is convenient, and what is convenient attracts much more visitors.

How to return money that I transferred to scammers on Avito?

We looked at how scammers operate on Avito. We will also touch on the question of what to do for a person who has already become a victim of scammers. As a rule, the first thing that victims are interested in is how to get money back from scammers on Avito. The method depends on how you transferred the money. If it is a mobile phone number, it is almost impossible to prove that it was an advance payment for the goods. Only contacting the police or a magistrate's court and investigating can help.

If a fraudster managed to hack your online banking account, and you did not give him passwords and account access codes, submit an application to the branch of the credit institution. The sooner you do this, the higher the chance of returning the money transferred to scammers on Avito. The same thing needs to be done if you transferred money to a scammer and only after that you realized who you were dealing with.

Note!

Returning money and canceling transactions is the right, not the obligation of the bank. The resolution of the issue remains at the discretion of the institution.

If you notice that money has been withdrawn from your card, immediately block the card by calling your bank. This way you will save the remaining funds.

If an advance payment is requested at a personal meeting, ask for a receipt. Without this document, it will be very difficult to prove the advance payment.

Be sure to report fraud to Avito support service. The site administration will block the account of the scammers and, if necessary, will assist the police in finding those who fraudulently received your money. In addition, by warning the portal management, you will protect other users from meeting scammers.

We will also consider where to go if you have suffered from scammers on Avito. File a police report. Please indicate:

• name of the police department;
• Full name of the boss;
• your data - full name, address, contacts;
• circumstances of the crime, amount of damage, actions of the criminals;
• all information about the attackers, including their full names, addresses, contacts;
• evidence of fraud;
• an indication that you are aware of the liability for false denunciation;
• date and signature.

Attach all available evidence - screenshots of correspondence, recordings of conversations with the scammer, checks, payment receipts. Collective statements are more effective in such cases, so it makes sense to find other victims of the actions of this scammer.

Illegal schemes in the “Avito work” section

Searching for work through specialized Internet resources is becoming more and more popular, so there are more and more cases of fraud in this area. There is no guaranteed protection from scammers, so in order not to fall for their tricks, you need to know about deception schemes. There are a lot of options, the most common are:

• Paid sending of SMS messages about the availability of suitable vacancies.
• Network marketing.
• Charging a registration fee to create a job applicant profile.
• Obtaining bank card information to pay for job search assistance.

Punishment

The punishment for scammers on Avito depends on the amount of damage. If it is less than 1 thousand rubles, the fraudster faces sanctions under Art. 7.27 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. This includes a fine of up to five times the amount of the stolen property, arrest for up to 15 days, and compulsory labor for up to 50 hours.

For more serious consequences, the punishment will be criminal. The court may impose one of the following sanctions for divorce on Avito:

• fine up to 120 thousand rubles;
• compulsory work up to 360 hours;
• correctional labor for up to a year;
• suspended sentence or actual imprisonment for up to 2 years;
• arrest up to 4 months;
• forced labor for up to 2 years.

If the amount of damage is more than 5 thousand rubles. or a crime committed by a group of persons, fraudsters face:

• fine up to 300 thousand rubles;
• compulsory work up to 480 hours;
• correctional labor for up to 2 years;
• imprisonment for up to 5 years;
• forced labor for up to 5 years.

Note!

Damage of 250 thousand rubles is considered major. and higher. The fine in this case increases to half a million, and the prison term - up to 6 years. If the damage was particularly large (from 1 million rubles) or an organized criminal group acted, the attackers face up to 10 years.

Summary

Be careful when buying and selling goods on the Avito website. Follow our recommendations:

• do not provide card details, give the number only if you are sure of the seller or buyer;
• do not give out the card PIN code or the code sent via SMS under any circumstances;
• Be wary of refusals to meet in person and requests for prepayment.

If you have already become a victim of scammers, block cards and accounts that scammers may have access to, apply for a refund to the bank, contact the police, and, if necessary, contact an experienced lawyer who will ensure an investigation.