TV journalist and leader of the public movement Timofey Bazhenov commented on Sberbank’s information about telephone fraud, calling for a state fight against call centers of criminals and tougher penalties for this.
“The data of the country’s largest bank should be a turning point in the fight against electronic fraud. In fact, cybercriminals are waging an undeclared war with the citizens of the country, the victims of which are primarily elderly people, ” Bazhenov said. To solve the problem, urgent state intervention is needed. We need changes in the legislation. Fraudsters must be imprisoned for at least five years, and if the offense is committed against pensioners, then it must be recognized as particularly serious.
According to the data announced at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), phone fraudsters steal from the accounts of Russians from 3.5 to 5 billion rubles every month, and the average check of a fraudulent operation is about 8000 rubles. According to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the number of attacks on customers of all banks last year almost doubled (by 88%) compared to 2019.
More than 80% of fraudulent activities are carried out through phone calls to bank customers.
Bazhenov added that if it is now officially known that one fraudulent call center makes from 3,000 to 7,000 calls every day, then strict administrative measures are required to speed up the receipt of information about such spam centers to law enforcement agencies from banks and mobile operators.
The period of such a response, according to the journalist, should not exceed one day.