Events

The Astrakhan Region branch of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation tells how fraudsters look for droppers, whether it is possible to be involved in a crime without knowing it, and what the risks of such mediation are.

Fraudsters try not to expose their bank accounts in criminal schemes. They use droppers – intermediaries who receive money from the victim of fraud. This way, the scammers cover their tracks and avoid blocking personal cards.

The task of droppers (sometimes they are simply called drops) is to become a front for fraudsters. They receive money from victims of fraud on their cards and accounts. And then they transfer the stolen amounts or give them in cash to the organizers of the crime. If the scam is revealed, the intermediary will be the first to be at risk.

Droppers receive a commission or a fixed one-time payment for their work. Often, they don’t even realize that they are participating in something illegal.

How do scammers find droppers?

Usually, scammers offer people simple part-time work. They distribute information about the vacancy via social networks, instant messengers, classifieds sites and even with the help of leaflets on the streets. They invite everyone who wants to – no knowledge or experience is needed for employment, a bank card or online bank is enough. Therefore, droppers can be very different people – from schoolchildren to pensioners.

To prevent people from suspecting what their cards and accounts are really for, scammers use a variety of legends. Here are the most common ones:

• Get a job as a lottery administrator.  The person is told that he must transfer prize money to the winners of the drawing or send profits to participants in an investment project. Usually, the organizers give confusing explanations why they cannot make the transfers themselves. But often people who are looking for at least some kind of part-time work are not even interested in such details.
  In reality, stolen money comes to the account or card number of the “administrator”. Then it must be sent to other droppers involved in the chain, or to the criminals themselves.
• Help out a bank manager.  Fraudsters pose as bank employees who need to fulfill a plan for issuing cards. They offer to earn from 1,500 to 5,000 rubles for a person to apply for a card and immediately give it to an employee or provide him with access to online banking. They give a bonus for friends who also open a card.
  Teenagers are easily drawn into such schemes – they can open their own cards from the age of 14. In this case, the criminals do not even have to ask the person to do anything, they carry out all the operations themselves. The main thing is to get hold of the card or access to the online bank.
• Become a freelance police officer.  Fraudsters pretend to be law enforcement officers and convince a person to help the investigation . According to the legend, the police have already found the criminals, but want to catch them red-handed. To do this, a volunteer must pretend to be an accomplice to the fraudsters and receive the stolen money on his card. Then, instead of transferring it to the scammers, you need to withdraw it and give it to the investigators. They guarantee a reward for the work. If the person shows good behavior, they promise official employment in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But in fact, the volunteer does not pretend to be a dropper, but becomes one. He receives the stolen money, and he hands it over to real criminals. 
• Help a financial institution bypass sanctions.  Fraudsters offer unofficial part-time work on behalf of a bank or brokerage company. They say that they have figured out how to return assets blocked abroad due to sanctions to Russia. They need a person who will accept a transfer from a foreign intermediary, then cash it and send the money to the details of a safe account.
  In reality, of course, there is no foreign intermediary. The money must again migrate from the victim of the fraud to the fraudsters.

In some cases, it’s not even about work. A person receives a large sum of money into their account, and then a stranger calls or writes to them and claims that they transferred the money by mistake. They ask to return it by phone or card number. In fact, the transfer comes from the victim, whom the scammers have already deceived. Now they want the recipient of the money to transfer the amount to them.

Why is it dangerous to become a dropper?

The victim of the fraud transfers money to the dropper. She considers him to be the criminal – she reports the incident to her bank and files a police report. More information about him can be collected using his phone number, bank card or account.

Banks and the police transfer the data of a person involved in fraudulent schemes to a single database of droppers maintained by the Bank of Russia.

Every bank in the country is connected to this database. When a person gets into it, all his cards are blocked.

The bank will also disable remote access to accounts via the mobile app and personal account on the website for the dropper. The client will be able to withdraw money that was in accounts and deposits only at the bank office.

Banks will block any transfer to a dropper and warn the sender that they are most likely sending money to a fraudulent account. The exception is wages and payments from the state, such as pensions or subsidies. They will be credited to the account, but they can only be received at a bank branch.

If the victim of the fraudsters files a report with the police or goes to court, the consequences for the dropper will become even more serious – he will have to return the money that the victim transferred to him, and there is also a risk of ending up in prison.

How to avoid becoming a dropper by accident?

When you are looking for a job, do not agree to use personal accounts to transfer money, do not give your card to strangers, and do not give them access to your online banking. An employer who complies with the law will never ask for such things.

To avoid being an accomplice to a crime, do not send money that came to you by mistake. Contact your bank and ask for a return transfer using the sender’s details.

If you have children who are already 14 years old, tell them about dropshipping and explain the rules of financial safety. 

The bank blocked my card, but I’m not a dropper. What should I do?

Banks freeze accounts and cards not only because of suspicions of droppering.

The card may stop working – for example, if you yourself entered the wrong PIN code three times. In such cases, the bank thinks that it was stolen and disables it for the rest of the day or for a whole day.

Or, say, you wanted to send a large sum to a relative in another region in the dead of night. The bank might decide that criminals are trying to clean out your account and freeze the card for two days.

In addition, the bank will block the card if it suspects you of money laundering. And you may have simply collected money from the parents of the entire class to celebrate the graduation from school.

Contact your bank to clarify the situation. If there is a misunderstanding, they will unfreeze your card.

It seems I’m a dropper after all. What should I do?

First of all, stop all contact with the scammers. They may try to intimidate you, blackmail you by saying that you have already performed some operations for them. But the risk is much higher if you remain their accomplice. If you encounter threats, contact the police with  a statement that you were deceived into a scam.

If you have given your card to strangers or disclosed to them secret login details for your bank account, immediately contact the bank, block the card and remote access to accounts.

If you have already been included in the dropper database and the bank itself has disabled your cards, it is best to come to its branch and ask the managers for help. Explain that you did not intend to become an intermediary in fraudulent schemes, you have realized your mistake and will not repeat it again. The bank can send a request to the regulator to remove you from the dropper list. But it is not obliged to do this and has the right to refuse.

Then submit an application to  the Bank of Russia online reception  yourself . Write in detail about what happened and ask to exclude you from the dropper database. In the application, be sure to include your passport details, SNILS, your phone number, the name of your bank, as well as the numbers of cards or accounts that may have been involved in fraudulent schemes.

The regulator will decide within 15 working days whether to remove you from the dropper database. But if the police added you to it, the issue cannot be resolved until the investigation is completed.