Fraudsters on Avito: deception schemes, how to avoid money scams

Shopping on the Internet is really convenient, but online shopping is a high-risk area, as it is very easy to encounter fraud. If you were deceived on Avito, you don’t need to limit yourself to regretting the lost money: you have the right to punish scammers for their unlawful actions.

However, if you have not encountered such cases before and do not understand the intricacies of the current legislation, it is better to enlist the support of a professional lawyer.

Advance payment scam

The prepayment fraud scheme is as follows: after finding the desired product on Avito, you contact the seller, but he informs you that he is currently out of town, but the item you are interested in can be booked. You will be asked to pay a fee for the reservation. Or, when selling any devices, the seller offers to install a special application for an additional amount. The amount of the advance payment may be small so as not to scare away potential clients.

Until you send an advance payment, the scammer goes to any lengths to prove his “honesty”. He can even send you a scan of your passport. In fact, it turns out that the sent data is invalid or belongs to an unauthorized person from whom it was stolen.

After the seller on Avito receives an advance payment, he will disappear. You will not receive phone calls or messages. Before sending money to an unknown person, make sure that the risk of contacting a scammer is minimal. Typically, with this scheme, financial losses are small. The seller receives a little from everyone who “bought” the scam, and the sum ends up being quite large.

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.

Access to the buyer's bank card or account

It often happens that scammers on Avito need your secret data. For example, information on a plastic card from Sberbank or any other bank. You publish an advertisement about the search for a specific product, and in response you receive a message with a link, by clicking on which you can see the item offered. Under no circumstances should you click on such a link. It can trigger the download of a malicious file that reads your banking information.

Fake sites

Also, following the link, you can get to a scam site and not even realize that you have been taken to a fake page. Fraudsters often create exact copies of popular websites, including Avito. Therefore, always check the website address. When you enter the official Avito page, a lock appears on the left - a sign of secure encryption of the entered and transmitted data.

If you fall for the scammer’s trick and then enter personal information from your Avito account or bank card, your money may be stolen. In addition, your page may be used to further send spam.

CVV or CVC codes

Also, scammers may write that they cannot send money for the goods without a secret code, which is located on the back of the plastic - CVV or CVC code. This information must not be disclosed under any circumstances, because all operations on the Internet take place with its help. Then the attackers will be able to buy anything they want if they get hold of such information. Disclosure of the code is even more dangerous if the card is a credit card. Then you can lose not only your money, but also the entire available credit limit.

Codes from SMS

Scammers may also request a code that comes in the form of an SMS from the bank to confirm any transaction. It also cannot be reported. Because this way scammers will be able to confirm any transaction on the account. This could include transferring all the money to a third party’s card.

The only card information that may be required from you, and it will be quite harmless, is the plastic number. It consists of 16 digits and is located on the front of the card. A request for any other information on a bank card is a clear sign of fraud on Avito or any other Internet resource. If you still fall for the tricks and the money has disappeared from your account, call the bank. Inform the employee about the incident and immediately block the plastic.

Is it possible to file a police report through the Ministry of Internal Affairs website?

You can contact the Ministry of Internal Affairs online.
The application is submitted on the official website of the department. You can use both the main and regional versions. To submit your application you must follow the instructions:

Go to the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and select a territorial department.
On the right side of the page, click “Receive requests”. Place a check mark in the box confirming that you have read the information.
Click the “Submit Appeal” button. Fill out the proposed form, describing in detail the current situation in the “Text of appeal” paragraph.
Attach the necessary files confirming the fact of fraud.
Submit your request after receiving appropriate confirmation.

Attention! The application is reviewed within 3 working days. After this, a decision is made to initiate criminal proceedings or refuse. The applicant is sent a written notification.

Selling low-quality goods

Scammers on Avito often offer goods at a fairly low price with a guarantee of quality. For example, instead of a good car, they will slip in a used, beat-up car, or instead of a purebred husky puppy, they will give you a mongrel with a false pedigree.

Buyers are often attracted to advertisements with goods that are cheaper than other sellers. In this case, the seller demands to pay for the goods as soon as possible under the pretext of an urgent departure, so that you do not have time to notice the catch.

Check the offered product carefully and without haste. If the seller is in a hurry, most likely he wants to deceive you and get money for a low-quality product. Do not trust those sellers who offer expensive equipment or purebred animals at too low prices. It's better to pay a little more and get a quality item than to try to save money and get a counterfeit.

Contacting Avito support service

Recently, the interface of the help section on the Avito website has been slightly redesigned - now there is extensive help and useful answers to the most common questions that users may have.

But the ability to send your own request to the technical support service was moved to another, not the most prominent place, and the button itself significantly changed its appearance.

And yet, contacting the specialists of this message board is quite simple. What to do if an ad is not published on Avito:

Go to the Avito main page using this link. On the top panel, find the “Help” tab and click on it with the left mouse button (LMB) to go.
Next, if you wish, check out the help available in the web resource library.
It is quite possible that this list also contains the answer to the question you want to contact support with. If the information you are interested in is not on the help page, just scroll to the very bottom - that’s where the button is located to go directly to support.

Please note that you can use the help system and technical support services even without authorization on the site. And yet, Avito offers to log into your account to speed up the process of providing assistance. Once at the bottom of the “Help” page, click on the “Ask a Question” button located in the “Support Service” block.
Now choose a topic that matches the reason for your application. In our example, the first of the available options will be selected – “Account and Personal Account”.
Next, it is proposed to select a more specific problem from the general topic identified in the previous stage. In our example, the first option is again selected.

Note: Pay attention to the block “Articles on the topic” , located below the list of problems on the previously selected topic. Perhaps you will find the answer to your question there.
Finally, we have finally reached our destination. In the “Description” field, describe in detail the essence of the problem that you encountered while using the Avito message board. Remember, the more detailed you describe everything, the higher the effectiveness of the assistance provided.
- Having described the problem in detail, you can accompany it with “evidence” - the “Select file” button located under the input field allows you to attach a screenshot (for example, with an image of the error) to the message.
Enter your name in the appropriate field. A little lower, enter the characters shown in the picture.

Double-check that all fields are filled out correctly and click “Send Message.”

Done, you have sent your message to the Avito website support service. All that remains now is to simply wait for a response to the email address specified in the application form. We conclude our article here, hoping that it was useful to you and helped you resolve the problem that arose and/or get an answer to your question.

Sending goods by cash on delivery

Fraudsters resort to this method of deception when selling electronics, gadgets, computers and other IT equipment. You may not suspect deception until the last moment. The seller does not require prepayment and does not ask for card information. The parcel is sent by mail cash on delivery. When you receive the goods at the post office, you pay for it, and then you realize that what they sent you is not what you paid for.

The seller doesn’t even disappear. He gets in touch with you and explains that it is not stipulated anywhere that they were required to send you branded equipment. At the same time, the technical parameters of the device coincide with those declared, which means there can be no complaints.

To protect yourself from such scams, buy an item that you can inspect initially. It’s better to pay a little more, but get a high-quality gadget that meets all the stated characteristics.

Rules for selling on Avito

By following the basic safety rules for buying and selling on Avito, you can insure yourself against unauthorized actions of fraudsters.

Prepayment

Paying for a service or product in advance is a common practice in stores that operate online. This technology is also used by scammers. However, the technique is used in the form of urgent sale of goods for which there is supposedly a queue.

The trading company provides all data and telephone numbers for communication. Fraudsters justify their absence by the inability to meet with the client and offer only a plastic card account. Having received an advance payment for the goods, compensation for the promise to send it through a transport agency, the seller disappears.

To avoid financial expenses when purchasing remotely via Avito, you should resort to the following rules:

Agree on payment by cash on delivery.
Record the availability of the goods with a photographic image and a detailed description of the item for sale.
Check customer reviews about the seller on the exchange.
Do not transfer money to your mobile device number.

If the acquirer is satisfied with everything, and he does not see the intention that they want to cheat him, then it makes sense to conclude a deal.

Fraud with payment terminals

Some scam sellers ask to pay for goods through the Qiwi e-wallet, since the courier allegedly cannot accept payments. At the same time, scammers benefit from the fact that not all buyers understand how this type of payment works. It will be impossible to return funds sent to attackers using the specified details.

Fraudsters provide the wallet number to which funds should be transferred. According to them, the money sent is frozen, and in order to unfreeze it, you need to enter a certain code. This code, along with the goods, will supposedly be delivered to you by the courier, then you tell the code to the seller, and he will have access to the money sent earlier. But in fact, the funds transferred to Qiwi are available to the scammer as soon as you send them. As a result, you receive neither money nor goods.

In this case, recognizing a scammer on Avito is quite simple. Stand your ground that you will transfer payment only after you receive the goods. If there is a fraudster in front of you, then he himself will refuse the deal for some far-fetched reason.

Do I need to contact the prosecutor's office?

Some defrauded clients of online stores and various online platforms believe that it is unlikely that it will be possible to bring the perpetrators to justice without contacting the prosecutor’s office.

In reality, this body does not consider applications from defrauded Avito clients, but the prosecutor’s office does not have the right not to accept an appeal. If you were deceived on Avito and you send a statement directly to the prosecutor’s office and not to the police, it will still be handed over to the police.

But direct contact with the prosecutor’s office also has its advantages. As practice shows, if your application is received by the police from the prosecutor's office, the police are highly likely to respond to it faster.

Thus, if you were deceived on Avito, the first thing to do is write a request to the resource’s support service and then file a report with the police.

It should be borne in mind that bringing the perpetrators to justice is a rather complex process, and it cannot be done without special knowledge. In such a situation, the optimal solution is to seek help from a professional lawyer who will competently draw up a statement regarding fraud on Avito and will represent your interests.

Sources:

Fraud

Petty theft

Calls to paid numbers

Fraudsters publish an advertisement on Avito about the sale of any product. An interested user calls the phone number listed on the website, but the seller does not answer. And then suddenly it turns out that they charged too much money for calling this number.

To identify a scammer on Avito, pay attention to the phone number itself. If it looks suspicious - too short or with an unusual subscriber code - it’s better not to call. Try to find this phone number on the Internet. Usually information about such methods of fraud spreads very quickly on the Internet. Also try contacting sellers via WhatsApp or Viber; for real sellers, the messenger is often connected to the main number, so they won’t charge you anything at all.

Signs of scammers on Avito

Simple registration on the Avito service platform is a convenience for sellers and buyers, and scammers take advantage of this. There is no need to confirm the data with a photocopy of a civil passport or tax ID.

Registration is carried out only by telephone number or email address. Participants in the process do not see each other, and it is not possible to look at the product on their own.

A cheaply sold item makes the consumer want to purchase it, despite the strange price and reputation of the seller.

To avoid becoming a victim of deception, you need to pay attention to the following factors:

Unreasonably low price of the goods sold. This sign can be deceiving, because people always need to sell something urgently. However, you should be careful, because this is one of the signs of fraud.
Account registration date. After usually making several transactions, scammers create a new profile because the old one is blocked. By looking at the date, you can determine that you will be dealing with a new member of the site.
A constantly busy or disconnected phone also serves as a reason for mistrust of the other party.
The difference in the seller’s information provides no less reason for considering the upcoming transaction. Often in fraudulent schemes, one can trace the discrepancy between a person’s gender.
The Avito service provides for linking to one of the social network accounts, which provides feedback with it. According to the creators of the exchange, this should increase the reliability of the seller. But you can connect any account, because the Avito client will not be able to look at it and verify the authenticity of the person.

Poor-quality photographs of goods can also indicate the dishonesty of a participant in the Avito exchange. Real sellers post high-quality images. The opposite situation occurs with scammers. Their cards are blurry and lack clarity.

What to do if you encounter a scammer

Knowledge of the basic schemes by which scammers operate on Avito will provide greater security to users. But if you do become a victim of one of the scams on Avito, it is advisable to stop the fake seller or buyer. This way you can help other users save their money, and in some cases, get your money back.

If you encounter fraud on Avito, report it to the police. File a fraud report. Attach evidence of fraud to your application:

printed screenshots of a fake ad on Avito, correspondence with a swindler;
personal information of the fraudster, which he passed on to you during communication - this could be postal addresses, links to accounts, phone numbers, bank details;
checks and receipts for payment for goods.

Make copies of all documents and have them certified by a notary. The papers may be needed later in court.

If you were robbed of a small amount, the police may refuse to open a case. There is only one way out of the situation - to find other victims of the same scammer and file a collective complaint.

If scammers were able to hack your personal online banking account, and you did not give them authorization data and access codes, submit an application for a refund addressed to the head of the bank branch. After reviewing the request and proving your non-involvement, you may receive back all the funds that the attackers were able to steal.

You can also file a complaint against the scammer through a special form on the Avito website. The administration will block the account and, if necessary, provide assistance to the police.

about the author

Klavdiya Treskova - higher education with qualification “Economist”, with specializations “Economics and Management” and “Computer Technologies” at PSU. She worked in a bank in positions from operator to acting. Head of the Department for servicing private and corporate clients. Every year she successfully passed certifications, education and training in banking services. Total work experience in the bank is more than 15 years. [email protected]

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Underwater rocks

If you commit fraudulent actions on the Avito service, you will have to try hard to get your money back.
In this case, the following difficulties may arise:

You will have to prove that the money was transferred not on a voluntary basis, but as a result of fraud.
Banking organizations may refuse to return the money if the card details are available to the fraudster.
A citizen who finds himself in a difficult situation may not know how to draw up statements or where to apply.

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Your comment (question) If you have questions about this article, you can tell us. Our team consists of only experienced experts and specialists with specialized education. We will try to help you in this topic:

Author of the article: Klavdiya Treskova

Consultant, author Popovich Anna

Financial author Olga Pikhotskaya

Replacing the payment page

You want to purchase something on a well-known website. The seller invites you to pay for your purchase online and sends you some kind of link. He claims that the buttons for placing an order, delivery or payment do not work on the site itself and hurries to follow the link sent to him. This is always a lie that is uttered for the sole purpose of luring you away from the real site to a fake version. Do not follow the link, much less enter your data there, even if its address is similar to the original one, and the page you land on looks exactly like the site you were on.

“If you buy or sell something on Avito, then the link can only be to the Avito website - www.avito.ru. If the address is similar, but not the same (for example, avitopayments.ru, avito-dostavka.ru, avitto.ru) - this is fraud. Moreover, you do not need to follow the links, since everything is already inside the avito.ru website. There is simply no need for an honest seller or buyer to send you a link. Attackers create Internet pages that are very similar to the payment section of a well-known website. After paying on such a page, at best you will not see either money or goods; at worst, other funds will be withdrawn from your card. Our security team monitors what happens on our platform, we warn the user when he receives a link that under no circumstances should he click on the links. However, if the buyer leaves using the link, we can no longer influence the transaction,” explains Kirill Lavrov.

In this way, not only buyers, but also sellers are deceived. When a person displays a product, he receives a call from a buyer who supposedly needs this product very urgently, finds out his details and sends a link - supposedly he has already transferred funds through the payment system or the internal service of the site. You just need to click on a button like “receive funds” or “deposit”.

Large online platforms are designed so that it is convenient for the seller and buyer to communicate and complete a transaction without going to third-party sites. In the built-in messengers of such platforms, it is often not even possible to insert an external link into the text of the message. If your interlocutor tries to take you to another site under various pretexts, refuse the deal. On a fraudulent site, you are not protected by anything and will not even be able to contact technical support for the trading platform you left.

Existing methods of deception

Prepayment for non-existent goods

The essence of this method is that the seller requires an advance payment for the selected product. He can justify his demand by the fact that you are not the only one who wants to buy this product, an urgent need for money, or the provision of any additional guarantees.

At the same time, such a seller refuses to meet in person to receive money or transfer the goods. He can justify this by being very busy or by the fact that he is now in another region.

Please note! Sellers on Avito who have received an advance payment from the buyer do not provide buyers with any documentary evidence that the transferred funds are an advance payment for a particular product. This negatively distinguishes them from online stores.

As a result, you will transfer money to the seller for the product, and particularly brazen scammers will demand that you pay for its delivery, and you will not receive anything in return. Of course, no one will return the money either.

At the same time, it is almost impossible to complain about sellers. After all, all that is known about the seller is the name and phone number he indicated on the website, which, most likely, is registered to a dummy and is simply thrown away after the transaction is completed.

Most often, this scheme is used in advertisements for the sale of expensive equipment, furniture and wardrobe items. So if you are looking for one of these, be as vigilant as possible.

Follow these guidelines:

do not respond to an advertisement for sale in which the price of the product is indicated significantly lower than the market average;
insist on paying for goods by cash on delivery;
look at what reviews about the seller are available on the Internet;
check the contact phone number provided by the seller through various search engines;
ask the seller to show you the product by sending a video of it or during a Skype conversation.

Attention! Under no circumstances agree to transfer funds to pay for goods to the seller’s mobile phone. In almost all cases, scammers act this way.

Don't rush to make a purchase. Carefully consider whether everything is satisfactory. This will help you avoid becoming a victim of scammers.

Payment by bank transfer

Unlike the previous one, this method is directed against sellers. Everything happens according to the following scheme: the seller receives a phone call. The caller reports that he is going to purchase the item being sold in the very near future. At the same time, he doesn’t even try to bargain.

Remember! At the end, such a “buyer” declares that he can only pay by wire transfer. At the same time, he refuses a personal meeting, using various pretexts.

If the seller agrees to this, then he is asked to provide his bank card information, supposedly to make a transfer. At the same time, in addition to the card number contained on its front side, they ask to inform you what numbers are printed on the back of the card and the one-time passwords received via SMS. The attackers assure the naive seller that all this is required to transfer funds to him as quickly as possible.

When working under this scheme, the scammer may ask:

insert the card into the ATM and enter certain combinations;
dictate the one-time password sent by the bank;
provide the CVV code of the card.

All this is done only in order to gain access to online banking or the ability to pay with a card on third-party resources.

It is important! To avoid becoming a victim of such scammers, remember that to make a transfer to a card, you just need to provide its number, expiration date and who it is issued to. If you are asked to give the CVV code, hang up immediately, because they are scammers!

Toll telephone numbers

The main victims of this type of fraud are citizens looking for work. Information about a “super tempting” vacancy is published especially for them. You can find out all the detailed information by calling the contact number.

A citizen dials this number, he is provided with some vague information or is simply switched from one operator to another. As a result, it turns out that the vacancy has already been filled.

After this, the citizen discovers that during the conversation the operator withdrew a fairly large amount of money from his phone account. At the same time, some operators can drive their subscribers into big “minuses”.

Remember! To avoid becoming a victim of this scheme, remember that paid numbers begin with the numbers “8-809” and “0-900”. If the number listed in the ad seems strange, be sure to check information about it through search engines before calling it. This will save you from unnecessary expenses.

Placement fee

As in the previous case, the described scheme is directed against citizens looking for work. Attackers publish a vacancy, promising a fairly large salary for performing a minimum number of very simple job duties.

Potential applicants for this vacancy are asked to indicate their interest by email. In response to his application, a person receives a lengthy letter, which will outline all the advantages of this vacancy.

At the end of such a letter, the citizen will be informed that the company is ready to hire him, but guarantees are required. As such guarantees, the applicant should transfer a certain amount to the bank details below.

Further assurances will follow that the amount transferred as such a deposit will be returned upon the first payment of wages or after the completion of the first order.

If you receive such an offer, remember that no employer has the right to charge applicants for their vacancies in cash, even as a deposit.

Therefore, do not transfer any funds under any circumstances. Otherwise, you will no longer see them, and they will fall into the hands of scammers.