A 71-year-old pensioner in Aktobe region fell victim to phone scammers, the regional police department reported. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Sputnik Kazakhstan.
The scammers contacted the woman via WhatsApp messenger, posing as employees of "Energo Snab" LLP. They told the pensioner that her electricity meter needed to be replaced and asked her to provide a code sent from number 1414.
Later, the fraudsters called again, claiming to be employees of the eGov.kz portal and the National Bank's security service, saying that her account funds were at risk. They convinced the pensioner to transfer money to a "safe account," police said.
She took out a loan of 500,000 tenge and transferred the money to an account provided by the scammers. Then they persuaded her to urgently sell her apartment to "protect her property." The pensioner sold her apartment for 7.5 million tenge, transferred part of the money via bank, and gave the rest to a courier.
Bank employees noticed the suspicious transaction and repeatedly warned the woman, trying to persuade her not to transfer the money. However, under the influence of the scammers, the pensioner ignored their warnings, the Aktobe region police department said.