No chance of anonymity: operators are required to confirm subscriber data

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We present our passport to government officials and bank employees, indicate data when registering on web resources, and without a doubt hand over a photocopy when applying for a job or issuing a loan.

We are sometimes frivolous, not realizing what scammers can do with passport data once they have obtained it. What possible consequences will become clearer from this review.

What can scammers do?

• get a loan from a microfinance organization;
• re-register property;
• conduct unclean business on web resources;
• open a company;
• use a credit or telephone card;
• register transactions;
• play in online casinos;
• perform other illegal actions.

Most of the listed frauds are difficult to carry out, but possible. A citizen needs to be aware of the consequences of the fact that information from his passport has become the property of dishonest persons.

Additional questions

What to do if a bank loan was taken out in your name

Often, scammers take out loans using another person’s passport. He learns about the debt from notifications or calls from collectors or employees of a credit institution. In this case, there are two ways out of the situation: accept it and start paying, or file a complaint with one of the authorized organizations.

Where to contact?

• Law enforcement agencies;
• Roskomnadzor;
• Prosecutor's office

Employees of these organizations are required to accept a citizen’s application and conduct an investigation to identify leaks of confidential data. If the result is positive, the guilty person will be punished and the debt will be cancelled.

How to avoid falling into the hands of scammers

It is, of course, impossible to provide yourself with 100% guarantees against fraudulent schemes. However, the likelihood of falling into a fraudulent trap can be somewhat reduced. Let us give you some practical advice:

• If one of the organizations asks you to provide a photocopy of a document, then it is better to do it yourself;

Handing over a document to make a copy may result in its handing over to some fraudulent person.

• It is better to always keep original documents at home, not at work;
• If an employee of a banking organization asks to provide a passport to draw up a loan agreement, it is recommended to observe all manipulations with the passport with extreme caution and attentiveness;

It is at the stage of drawing up an agreement that most often the transfer of personal information of clients to fraudulent persons who are in collusion with bank employees occurs.

Also read: Fraud in the lending industry (expert opinion)

Your photos can also be used against you

Sometimes we ourselves willingly share our confidential data - all that remains is to take it and use it. There have been so many cases when lucky people flying on vacation posted their boarding passes on social networks, and then greatly regretted it.

No wonder: knowing your last name and ticket number, you can get into your own account. And, for example, canceling registration or a flight - well, out of spite. It is much worse if, when entering this data, the airline gives full access to the account, where phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers and bonus cards are indicated.

How paper passports and their levels of protection will change: latest news

The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation announced the need to replace paper passports with electronic ones. The full transition is planned to be completed before the beginning of 2024. Moscow was chosen as the pilot region. The project launches in mid-summer 2021. Gradually other regions of the country will join it.

An electronic passport looks similar to a regular plastic card. At the same time, unlike paper, it will be reliably protected from fraudulent activities.

It is planned to place on the electronic passport:

• Holographic photo;
• QR code;
• FULL NAME. owner and other data

The passport will be blocked in a matter of minutes, at the request of the owner. The document is valid for 10 years.

How can scammers get hold of my passport data if I don’t register on suspicious sites?

From time to time we all leave our passport details with various organizations. Even if it is legal, no one is immune from the human factor. It is quite possible that a company employee who has access to personal data will want to earn extra money and sell your passport information on the Internet.

Why do organizations issue loans based on a copy of a passport?

Lawyers give a clear answer to this question: because of their bad faith. The fact is that an ordinary copy of a passport has no legal force, moreover, it may not be recognized as a document at all. In this case, the organization that has given up on the rules for issuing a loan bears full responsibility for the transaction. For the passport holder himself, an illegal loan agreement does not entail legal consequences.

Experts confirm: a law-abiding company, before issuing financial funds to a person, will definitely require the presentation of the original passport. And it should be shown not by an outsider, but by the owner himself.

If you doubt the integrity of the company, then its reputation can be checked using the register of microfinance organizations, which is published on the website of the Central Bank. All structures operating in Russia according to the law have appropriate licenses. If a company is not listed on the Central Bank resource, or is not in the Directory of Financial Market Participants, then you should not trust it. Most likely, she will not follow the rules for applying for a loan.

As lawyers note, a company operating within the law will never issue a loan based on a copy of a passport, because the likelihood of forgery is too high. As a result, the financial structure will not return its money; moreover, it will come under the close attention of law enforcement agencies and ruin its reputation.

In addition to requiring original documents, companies conduct scoring checks, as well as identification in several stages at once: this may involve checks through a partner bank, verification of SNILS data, photo or video identification. There are options in which the structure requests additional documents that will allow it to make a decision on issuing money.

Unfortunately, in Russia there are financial institutions that are ready to provide a loan on any terms. Most often, they strive to quickly increase their customer base and make easy profits, so they can easily get by with just a copy of a passport, without understanding who the document actually belongs to.

How to find out who and how much I owe

You need to request your credit history. It contains complete information about all loans and borrowings issued in your name. This way you can immediately find out how much debt you have and in which financial institutions.

You will also find out the amount of debt, the amount of interest and penalties, the date when the loan was taken out, and the time of delay.

How to get rid of debt on a loan or loan that was issued by scammers

You need to immediately contact the financial company that issued the loan or loan in your name. If the situation reaches a dead end, you can complain to the Bank of Russia. And in any case, you need to write a statement to the police.

How to avoid falling into the hands of scammers

1. Be careful when shopping online. If a website asks for passport information, leave the site. Fraudsters are likely obtaining information from passports for illegal use. The exception is government service websites and payment services, where they must notify about the transfer of personal data and request permission.
2. Systematically change passwords on your computer.
3. Use different login modes for social networks and email.
4. Monitor the actions of the person to whom you give your passport for the transaction, and prevent the creation of a photocopy.
5. Do not give your passport as collateral.

Common scams involving other people's passport data

Law enforcement officers urge Russians to be extremely careful with the data contained inside the Russian Federation citizen’s ID. It is worth remembering that scammers who commit passport scams are so inventive that sometimes you don’t even need to lose your document to become their victim.

In Russia, over one and a half million passports of ordinary citizens are stolen every year. Only a fifth of them are found, the rest are then used in various kinds of fraud.

Criminals know well what can be done with a photograph of passport data. If previously a more popular method of forgery was changing the photo in the passport, today scammers often simply select a person similar to the owner of the passport and take large sums of money from the bank with his help.

Another option is to know all the person’s personal data and make a new passport on a blank form. This method, however, is not so common, since modern fraudsters can quite successfully use passport data without a passport.

Taking money from a bank

The easiest way to get a consumer loan or a mortgage loan from a bank is to have an accomplice at the financial institution. Usually this is an employee who was recently hired, and after completing a few transactions, he will simply quit.

The consequence of such fraud for the passport holder is usually an obligation to repay the debt. You can appeal the loan, but this will require time and money for a lawyer.

Registration of a company in the name of the passport holder

In connection with the simplification of registration of private entrepreneurship, cases of registering a business for unsuspecting citizens using their passport data have become more frequent.

Since in order to register your company, now you don’t even need to appear in person at government agencies, but rather carry out all operations using special online services, a business can easily be registered in the name of a stranger. Typically, such companies are involved in money laundering.

Payback in online games

Scams in online games can lead to financial losses and negatively affect the reputation of the deceived person. In many popular Internet games, a popular service known as donation. For real money, game participants buy game currency or various advantages in the game (weapons, equipment, combat qualities, and so on).

By gaining access to a game participant's account, scammers can spend the game currency available on his account, withdraw it from the system, and also use the account to send advertising spam.

Financial fraud on the Internet

There is enormous scope for fraud with stolen passport data online. If you find out a person’s personal data, it becomes possible to hack his accounts within electronic payment systems. This is fraught not only with the theft of funds, but also with various illegal operations being carried out at the expense of the passport holder.

Another thing you can do on the Internet with someone else’s passport:

• take a loan;
• purchase expensive goods;
• withdraw money to your card.

Apply for installments

Some online stores offer customers to buy goods in installments: to pick up the item, you need to provide your passport details, and you can pay for the purchase later.

This plays into the hands of scammers: they order goods using someone else’s document, and the courier is told that the purchase will be received by another person - not the owner of the passport. The warned courier calmly gives the expensive item to the swindler, but the unsuspecting passport holder must pay for it.

If the “borrower” has a good credit history, the installment plan will most likely be approved. True, the equipment will fall into the hands of scammers, and you will have to pay

How to buy online without risks

Register an electronic wallet

Fraudsters who deceive people on the Internet often ask victims to send them money to an electronic wallet - so it is profitable for scammers to use other people’s data. This way, all responsibility for fraud will fall on the shoulders of the fake wallet owner, and the real criminals will go unnoticed.

To register an electronic wallet, you need to enter the series and passport number on the website

Forge a passport

To produce a passport that a criminal can fully use, it is not enough to forge watermarks - a passport with false data will not pass any check in electronic databases.

Therefore, scammers use information from this document and paste their own photograph into a fake passport. Using a passport with real data, but with a photograph of a swindler, you can take out loans from small organizations without arousing suspicion, but the owner of the real passport will have to answer for the debts.

Blackmail

Having obtained someone else’s passport information, scammers find the owner of the passport on social networks and offer to pay them to delete information about the document, otherwise they promise to issue microloans in the victim’s name.

Also read: What amount is considered a particularly large amount of fraud?

From those who agree, scammers extract ever larger sums, blackmailing them with new frauds. If the victim refuses to pay, the scammers send a message from another account, pretending to be a defrauded buyer from an advertisement site: they say, I know your passport details, if you do not compensate for the damage, I will contact the police.

Apply for a SIM card

In a special program that generates scans of passports, scammers create a copy of the document: with the real data of a stranger, but with their own photograph. With this paper, the swindler comes to the communication salon and asks to issue a SIM card - he supposedly forgot his passport at home, but he has a copy.

If the employee considers the copy to be correct, the fraudster will be able to issue a SIM card using someone else’s data. This will help the criminal deceive people over the phone without fear of the police - in which case the operator will give out the victim’s passport information.

Using a SIM card, fraudsters can also take out a loan, leaving the owner of a real passport as the debtor: some telecom operators allow clients to apply for a bank card with a credit limit via the Internet

These are flowers, and there are also berries. Here's how ordinary people like you and I are scammed:

1. How hackers steal confidential information from hotel customers.
2. How fake employers deceive job seekers.
3. How scammers scam pensioners.

Cheating on ad sites

The scammer places an advertisement for the sale of an expensive item at a bargain price: he claims that it needs to be sold urgently, which is why the discount is large. And since the price is attractive, there are many people willing, so the swindler insists on prepayment: so as not to waste time if the buyer suddenly changes his mind.

As a guarantee, the fake seller sends a scan of a passport - of course, someone else’s, and after receiving the money, he stops responding to messages.