Lawyer Soloviev warned about a new fraudulent scheme with phishing links

SIMFEROPOL, September 27 - RIA Novosti. The scammers have generated a new deception scheme with questions from a user with a female name to an “ad” about the sale of an item, Ivan Soloviev, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, legal scholar, and head of the “Don’t Let Yourself Be Deceived” project, told RIA Novosti.

“The scammers have generated a new method of deception. It is designed to appeal to the potential victim’s curiosity and haste in making decisions. A person receives a message in the messenger from a user with a female name and a non-suspicious photo on the avatar,” Soloviev said.

According to him, the author of the message writes that she was interested in the “advertisement” of a potential victim about the sale of a certain item and expresses a desire to negotiate a purchase. In addition, the text contains a blue link “open ad,” the agency’s interlocutor noted.

“The scammers’ calculation is simple: if a person posted such an advertisement on a specialized platform, he will enter into correspondence, and if not, then out of curiosity he will follow the link to see what advertisement was posted on his behalf and what he was trying to “sell,” the lawyer explained.

For scammers, the most important thing is that the victim clicks on the link sent, Soloviev emphasized.

“If the victim asks about what kind of thing, or writes that the link does not open, the scammer asks to send him a screenshot of what happened after clicking on the link. Under the pretext that his link also did not open the first time,” added Solovyov.

The request to send a screenshot, according to the scammers’ plan, should additionally push the victim to click on the link, he clarified.