Scammers earned at least 18 million rubles on fake dates on the Internet

by time news

Over the past three years, at least 22 criminal groups have appeared in Russia, organizing fake dates (Fake Date), RBC reports with reference to a study by Group-IB. The income of one of these groups last year amounted to 18 million rubles. at 7000 transactions.

Group-IB experts described a fraudulent scheme: an attacker disguised as a girl meets on Tinder, Badoo or other social networks, and then transfers the communication to instant messengers. After that, the “girl” makes a date, while she has a “ticket” to the theater or to the stand-up show. She shows the QR code of her ticket and offers to redeem a seat next to her. The user pays for the “ticket”, after which the “girl” no longer gets in touch.

Group-IB recorded the first such schemes back in 2018, but in 2020-2021. Fake Date flourished. Fraudsters create fake websites with restaurants, cafes, tickets for stand-up shows, performances, concerts, etc. In total, Group-IB found 700 such sites on the Russian Internet. Moreover, if in 2019 there were only 25 such resources.

In addition to fake dating sites, Group-IB discovered another type of fraudulent scheme: cybercriminals create phishing sites for popular courier services and marketplaces. In some cases, the sites were registered by the same people, experts noted.

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