Rosvodokanal warned about a fraud scheme involving checking meters

MOSCOW, October 9 - RIA Novosti. Fraudsters, under the guise of utility service employees, demand an urgent inspection or replacement of meters, then stealing money and banking information, Rosvodokanal said.

“Criminals call citizens on behalf of employees of the water supply organization and demand urgent verification or replacement of meters. Under the pretext of utility services, they steal money and banking data,” writes Gazeta.Ru, citing Rosvodokanal experts.

They noted the most common scheme - fictitious verification. False inspectors come home, imitate inspecting the meter and charge from 1.5 to 2 thousand rubles for this.

Another scheme is the deliberate breaking of the seal. After this, the scammers threaten the owner with a fine of 15 to 30 thousand rubles for allegedly illegal consumption of water, Rosvodokanal warned.

Experts added that attackers can call or come under the guise of employees of a water supply organization and, under the pretext of filling out an application for verification, recalculating for services or entering data into an electronic database, ask for a bank card number, CVV code, password from SMS, or install a special application.