The police are paying attention to a new method of online fraud, which is used by people who present themselves as specialists of investment platforms or companies that help people to increase the value of invested sums in a short time. Victims are persuaded to install programs on their computer or phone that allow remote control and give attackers access to personal data, account names, passwords of victims’ banking applications.

A new type of online fraud is based on the false promise of profit from financial investments.

“Undeniable earnings”

• “People who are the targets of such fraud are contacted through various communication channels (social networks, advertising or even through phone calls/sms/e-mails) by people posing as representatives of investment companies/investment platforms and can “multiply” sums of money for a short time! With so-called “irresistible offers” or “irresistible wins,” online scams involve marketing products or services that don’t actually exist. In most cases, they try to create fake connections with various real companies in order to increase their credibility,” Brasov police said on Friday, according to News.ro.

Therefore, the scammers claim to be either investment experts or representatives of a well-known company, and that they have a legitimate authority to operate and promise very high returns. In fact, the goal is to convince the interlocutor to make a payment or transfer by card to invest, mostly the initial requests are for small amounts, for verification.

“I convince the victim to download various remote control applications (eg Anydesk, TeamViewer) on their phone/computer, laptop, etc., with the motivation that it will help them make the transaction easier and that they cannot view account names, passwords, personal data of the victim! FAKE! Their goal is to learn personal data, account names, passwords from banking applications, in order to later gain access to them and steal the available sums of money!”, the police report.

Police recommendations

They advise people to ignore e-mails, private messages or social media campaigns that promise easy money, not to share personal data or copies of ID documents over online networks, and not to install programs that allow remote access, at the request of unknown persons.