Telephone fraud, how to help the victim?

Unfortunately, telephone fraud is widespread today. Representatives of the legislative branch, law enforcement agencies and the best lawyers are uniting to find a solution to this problem at the systemic level, without infringing on the rights of banks and involuntary borrowers.

In St. Petersburg, the Vyborg District Prosecutor's Office is demanding that a pensioner's 9 million debt on four loans be cancelled. The story is not unique: a telephone fraudster convinced an elderly St. Petersburg resident to take out loans from various banks and transfer the funds to an account that belonged to the fraudster. The prosecutor's office filed a lawsuit to invalidate the loan agreements concluded as a result of fraud, since experts concluded that the pensioner entered into the agreements under the influence of deception and an erroneous perception of the situation.

Irina Uradovskikh, a lawyer at the Iusland law firm, commented on the current situation to the Business FM editorial board: “If it is established by expert means that the citizen was not aware of his actions, then, of course, this is a direct way to recognize the transaction as invalid. Each invalid transaction has certain legal consequences. In this case, law enforcement agencies are trying to write off this debt from the victim. We recently had a round table with a representative of the Investigative Committee, where these situations were considered, we were looking for a way out, what to do.

The fact is that some lawyers consider it necessary to recognize the contract as not concluded, which will entail the cancellation of all these debts - this is also one of the positions. Another situation is also being considered: if there is such a judicial act, where the contract is recognized as invalid, and within the framework of a criminal case, not the citizen, but the bank is recognized as the victim. In this case, if law enforcement agencies find those who committed the crime, the bank, as the victim, will have the right to demand the recovery of funds from them.” The Central Bank is also discussing additional measures to protect older people from fraudsters, but it is worth remembering that victims include people of different ages and even bank employees