New deception schemes! How Ukrainian migrant workers become victims of scammers in Poland

New Year’s holidays are one of the reasons for the activity of scammers. Every day they come up with new schemes, create new sites to cash in on gullible Ukrainians, who are a significant target audience for criminals in Poland.

One such scam, connected with short messages, was reported at the think tank of the international employment company Gremi Personal.

SMS scam with parcels

The scheme works simply:

• scammers send a message that they allegedly need to make an advance payment for the delivery of the parcel, or SMS that 1 zloty is not enough to pick up the parcel at the parcel terminal;
• in the message you will see the website address;
• follow the link and you are taken to a phishing resource that is transferred to the scammers’ website;
• criminals receive account data and withdraw money from it or cash out using the electronic system Bilk.

Scammers can also arrange online loans for you.

Polish number and phishing site PrivatBank

“Today” also learned one of the new schemes, how fraudsters steal your funds from bank cards.

The scheme, let’s say, is somewhat incomplete, but, according to the same cybercriminals, it is effective. Indeed, in a day in the district in Poland where they worked, there are about 9 million. And once cyberspace was in its infancy, there were 20 million such cases per day.

What’s the point? You publish ads, for example, on OLX, in a couple of minutes they write to you with an offer to send the goods, but with full prepayment. It’s tempting enough, so most, without suspecting anything, agree.

However, there is one detail: the criminals are asking for a check for payment.

Then the scammers act step by step:

• ask to generate a check for payment, explaining that it is safer and faster this way;
• send you a link to a phishing site very similar to Privat24, where you must generate this check for a certain amount;
• there you just need to enter your bank details. Among them: phone number, password to Privat24 and pin-code of the card;
• the amount for which you wanted to sell this or that thing, you do not have.

Note, the number from which the messages were sent is Polish.

A link to a phishing site looks like this:

What does the phishing site Privat24 look like?

It is very easy to recognize a phishing site: although the interface is similar, there are inactive buttons on the site (in this case “Enter”, the search icon and three lines on top. And remember: Privat24 is an application, and its computer version has an official and unchanged domain.

Debt collection scheme

There are also other ways of obtaining funds illegally. For example, a debt collection scheme.

Fraudsters make special calls to Ukrainian migrant workers and Polish talk about debt or creditthat was taken in your name. They try to find out all your data and do everything to make you pay a fictitious debt.

As Anna Jobolda, Director of the Gremi Personal Recruitment Department, said earlier, one of the biggest fears of Ukrainian workers is to be deceived and left without money earned.

We also talked about the changes that await Ukrainian workers from the New Year.