In Bulgaria, we are still struggling with small frauds on the net. A NOVA team responded to a viewer's call. Ukrainian hackers posing as a well-known Bulgarian courier company are extorting thousands of BGN from unsuspecting victims.
The day is Thursday. A cyber-bandit posing as Ivanka wants to buy a second-hand camera for 236 BGN from Maria. They send her a link, supposedly to the website of a large courier company, and ask for her bank card details.
"It seemed a little strange to me, but I don't know why I did it. I can't explain why I gave my data", says Maria Popova.
Maria's husband is a programmer in Petrich. But such mistakes happen even in the best cyber families. "It turned out to be a tragicomic situation because I was away from home. She was just worried about calling me and decided to make this sale on her own," explains Iliya Popov.
The cyber bandits also made a support chat. "This is exactly what fooled her, that it was as if she was contacting the company itself and an employee,", her husband points out.
In this chat, she is told that her bank card, which has additional security measures, is temporarily down. "When they tell her about the temporary problem - she decides to give the more insecure card with a 2D password, which is easier to manipulate," adds Popov.
"This woman on Viber stopped answering, tech support stopped. I couldn't send anything. I called the courier company and they said it was a scam," says the victim.
This type of “phishing” scams are known to the Bulgarian services since 2021. "Every day we have two or three reports of such frauds. Once a week we have a victim who loses money from their bank card. In such frauds, the victim who has the highest loss is 12-13 thousand BGN. Hackers register domains. "Sites that look like well-known companies that provide some kind of courier services," said the head of the "Cybercrime" department. in GDBOP Commissioner Vladimir Dimitrov.
In order not to fall into the trap, we need to look at what the site extension is. In the case of the Petric family, the site ends in ".bg-r". "By opening in a phone browser to see only the first part of the domain name to trick the victim. The organized criminal groups are from Russian-speaking countries," the commissioner added.
When the Popovi family reported to the bank that 236 BGN had been stolen from them, they realized that their money had already been spent in Ukraine. "We found out after the transaction was made and there they still participate in the international requirements and write their data, the institution from which the money was requested, its amount and those withdrawn with Ukrainian currency,", says Iliya Popov.
The NOVA team is doing an experiment. When trying to dial the scammer's number, it immediately hangs up. It turns out that such a number does not exist. "Their idea is simply by registering Viber or Whats up to look like a Bulgarian user. Naturally, we are trying to counter them, but our options are limited because they are in countries that do not cooperate with the Bulgarian authorities, Europol, Interpol or the FBI," says Dimitrov.
The Popovi family is a family of 7 members. But even if they don't see their stolen money again, it won't affect their family budget.
To prevent such scams from happening again, the Petric programmer offers his services. "If they can't handle it, they should contact me from the company itself, so I can help them fix the problem," Popov points out.