"We Will Cure You Of Your Money" - COVID Fraud Thrives In Russia

"We will cure you of your money" - COVID fraud thrives in Russia

Selling drugs "for all diseases", virus blockers, urgent exchange of money at home, tests for coronavirus and antibodies through AVITO, protective creams and lotions from 5G - during a pandemic, scammers are very creative. Be careful.

The film "Gentlemen of Fortune" / Photo: Mosfilm 2117

Money will be changed soon, as there are many counterfeit ones

Today, Rospotrebnadzor warned Russians that, against the background of a difficult situation with the spread of coronavirus, scammers who speculate on the fears of Russians have become more active.

“Unscrupulous citizens and legal entities offer“unique”goods on a prepaid basis: special filters, air purifiers, medicines, etc. To deceive consumers, various new aspects of the situation that have arisen are used: payment of a supposedly issued fine, obligatory paid analysis or a special pass for movement, job search services,”the department said.

In addition, fraudsters are trying to enter the apartment in order to commit theft under new pretexts: a visit by a doctor, social worker, employee of a company that sanitizes the premises. As before, the main targets of criminals are elderly people who live alone.

So, the grandmother of the leading radio station "Moscow Says" Evgenia Volgina became a victim of the scammers. She described this incident in detail on her Facebook page. Two women in medical masks approached an elderly woman on the street, told her last name and address, then offered to go up to the apartment and write an application for the provision of free medicines "for all diseases."

“According to my grandmother, she was asked leading questions. The women used medical terms and my grandmother thought it was a nurse. Believing the unknown, the grandmother agreed that she lifted her bag (the second aunt stayed downstairs), and eventually sat down at the table to write a statement. I must say that the grandmother is a health worker herself in the past. Moreover, she knew that nothing happens for free and sent all these “let's check the counters, but we offer potatoes”, writes Evgenia Volgina.

After that, the fraudster unexpectedly announced that “they will soon change money, since there are many counterfeit ones,” and suggested that the pensioner rewrite the number of the 5000th bill so that later she could come to the bank and take “new” ones.

“The grandmother herself says that as if under hypnosis, she went into the room, took the bag, which contained all her savings. Seeing a bundle of banknotes, the malefactor snatched them out and ran away,”wrote Eugene. According to her, the fraudsters stole 265 thousand rubles - it was all the savings of the elderly woman.

“Talk to your relatives again. You can't get a doctor on call in order to get benefits, you have to walk around the Earth seven times on foot. Convince your family that they can only offer their money to scammers on the street for free,”Volgina warned.

Coronavirus tests - fast, inexpensive, with a guarantee

The difficulties with testing for coronavirus and the fears of Russians to get sick have spawned an entire underground industry. Social media users suspect that some of the incidents involve people who are related to medicine.

“A friend of mine was called here in the capital to take a covid test. Mayor's new program. I passed it. Not a day has passed - a call: You have a covid. A doctor has been sent to you! The man tenses up. Finds out that the test is not ready yet. And the doctor and the gang are already pounding at the door. The man calls the police. The breaking ones disappear. The police are happy and see no reason. After that, the clinic says that there is no covid. Judging by the impudence of those breaking, they have a roof,”political analyst Konstantin Kalachev wrote on his Facebook page.

Numerous "individuals" are offered to be tested for coronavirus or antibodies through advertisements on Avito.

“Test system for detecting antibodies to virus disease. Accuracy 99.29% Response within 5 minutes”- this is how a standard advertisement of swindlers looks like. Ostap also offers to be tested for coronavirus at home - quickly, reliably, with a guarantee. Moreover, the cost of such "tests" is even higher than in clinics and laboratories - from 1,500 to 4,000 rubles.

The scammers send everyone a payment link, which redirects the user to a fake site, and after payment the client loses money and, of course, does not receive anything. Earlier, the deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank, Stanislav Kuznetsov, said that in the first quarter of 2020 alone, the bank revealed 10 thousand online resources created for fraud, which is twice as much as last year.

A separate segment of the "market" is the radiation shielding from 5G towers. Most often, scammers offer creams and lotions on Avito, and most of the miraculous remedies will cost a lot: from 900 to 5,000 rubles. It is also proposed to protect against radiation and even chipping with the help of ordinary USB-sticks, which "automatically create a protective field up to 50 meters."

Ultrasound of the lungs, which is not

Unfortunately, not only criminals, but also private medical centers are sometimes engaged in speculation on the fears of citizens because of the pandemic. Doctor Olga Anikina warned on her Facebook page that some private medical companies began to offer the lung ultrasound service.

“I inform you: it is technically impossible to do an ultrasound of the lungs. Ultrasound practically does not propagate in the air; everything that can be "seen" in a given situation is exclusively at the border of the environments. Thus, the doctor has the technical ability to look into the pleural cavity, and even then only in one case: if a person has developed pleurisy and there is fluid in the pleural cavity. You can see a hardened lung under the fluid-filled pleural sinus, writes Olga Anikina. - Everything else, friends - a divorce. You can't put pneumonia on ultrasound. The percentage of defeat cannot be determined. Not because the doctor is a fool, but because there are completely different standards for the diagnosis of pneumonia."

According to her, the technique for examining the pleural cavities has existed for a long time and during the outbreak of coronavirus in Italy, doctors began to use it for the primary triage of patients at the stage of treatment. Patients who were diagnosed with pleurisy were urgently sent for computed tomography of the lungs - this is the study that allows you to identify pneumonia and the degree of lung damage.

It should be noted that the "lung ultrasound" service is currently offered by 118 private clinics in Moscow and 20 in St. Petersburg.