Scammers Impersonate Social Fund to Threaten Child Benefit Cancellation and Steal Savings

Fraudsters have launched a new social engineering campaign targeting parents by impersonating officials from Russia's Social Fund. Callers claim that suspicious transfers have been detected on family accounts and threaten the cancellation of child benefits unless savings are moved to a special transit account. The scheme relies on fabricated rules about income assessment and uses the promise of an 'unreported' account to trick victims into sending money. The Narodny Front's Moshelovka platform, cited by RIA Novosti, confirms that the Social Fund never requests transfers to third-party accounts for benefit verification. Families are instructed to check official notifications exclusively through Gosuslugi or by visiting an SFR office in person. Authentication codes from government services or banking apps must never be shared over the phone.

AntiMalwareTranslated from Russian

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Fraudsters have developed a new pretext to access family savings by threatening the cancellation of child benefits. Parents receive calls from individuals claiming to represent the Social Fund who allege that suspicious transfers have appeared on their accounts.

The callers state that these external funds could disqualify the family from receiving state payments. To prevent this outcome, they instruct victims to transfer all savings to a supposed special transit account that will not be counted in official income reports.

According to the Moshelovka platform run by Narodny Front and reported by RIA Novosti, the fraudsters present the account as an official mechanism for confirming the legitimacy of transfers. In reality, the Social Fund does not require any such movement of funds to external accounts.

Officials emphasize that questions regarding family income assessment must be resolved only through official channels. These include notifications on the Gosuslugi portal or direct in-person contact with SFR offices.

Experts warn that authentication codes from state services and banking applications should never be disclosed to telephone callers under any circumstances.

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