If Your Bank's Security Department Calls You — Be Careful. It Might Actually Be Them

"Hello, this is the bank security service. You urgently need to confirm your transactions. By tomorrow at 18:00 you must collect a full set of documents and hand them over. You are suspected of money laundering! We have sent a letter to your email address — please respond immediately!"

Everyone knows how calls like this end.

Or do they?

For a long time I had a productive relationship with one of the country's major banks. I will not name it, but its name starts with "V", ends with "B", with "T" in the middle.

The tone of the call was categorical and left no room for doubt — these were scammers.

The number they called from was an ordinary city landline. Searching for it online only revealed which operator it was registered with.

Just in case, I called the bank myself (using the official number from the back of my card) and asked whether they would really call with such demands. I gave them the number they had called from and described everything.

The response was just as categorical: "That is not our number. These are scammers. Do not tell them anything, do not send anything anywhere."

Just to be safe I read the email that had arrived in my inbox. My last doubts about it being a scam dissolved: no account numbers, no dates when the suspicious transactions allegedly occurred, no sender details, no amounts — nothing.

The Email Text

Dear Customer!

The Bank … (hereinafter — the Bank), in accordance with clause 4.11 of the Rules for Comprehensive Service of Individuals at the Bank, requests that you provide to the Bank the documents and information that are the basis for transactions on your accounts at the Bank, namely:

• A written explanation of the economic rationale for transactions on accounts for the period from January 2025 to the present;
• A written explanation of incoming transfers via the Fast Payment System with third parties and P2P transfers (with supporting documents);
• Documents confirming the source of funds credited to the account from January 2025 to the present;
• Explanations regarding relationships with counterparties;
• Documents confirming the client's income (form 2-NDFL, or — if the client is the general director of a company or sole trader — the most recent certified tax return, certified receipts for tax payments by the company/sole trader for the last reporting period).

Please provide the indicated documents to the Bank no later than 25 July 2025 at 18:00 by one of the following methods:

• Send to the email address bank@bank.ru in reply to this message;
• Visit any convenient Bank branch in person.

The information received from you will, in accordance with current legislation, be treated as banking secrecy and will not be disclosed.

Please provide the Bank with the full package of documents listed above within the stated deadline to avoid measures being applied in accordance with Federal Law No. 115-FZ and the Rules for Comprehensive Service of Individuals at the Bank.

We value our cooperation with you and are ready to answer any additional questions at the telephone number …

Yours sincerely, the Bank.

I put the letter in the trash and forgot about the whole episode, chuckling to myself. How clever I am, how I outsmarted the scammers.

A week later, the bank blocked everything. Absolutely everything.

What I Had at That Bank

I had two cards at this bank.

The first was a "sketchy credit card" with a credit limit I am psychologically prepared to lose. I used it for car-sharing, food delivery, websites, and similar services — around a hundred transactions a month. At the end of each month I check what I owe and top it up slightly above the limit. So: incoming transfers only from myself, outgoing transfers in small amounts to many different places.

The second was a master account I had held for over fifteen years. Two mortgages were managed through it. I had recently taken out a small home-renovation loan. I paid contractors by transfer — all official, with a contract reference in the payment description.

I suspect the problem started with this account. My wife needed to withdraw more cash than her card limit allowed. She transferred the money to me, and I withdrew the required amount at an ATM.

(These are all guesses, because no one explains the reason.)

The Outcome

I filed to close all accounts completely. I am still waiting for closure — ten days and counting. After that, I will need to reroute loan payments through another bank's account. And I will be ending a long-standing banking relationship.

It is worth noting that the bank itself did everything possible to look like a scammer.

How It Could Have Been Fixed

• Call from the bank's unified official number, not from some mystery city number that returns no results anywhere.
• Include in the letter the amounts, dates, and details of the suspicious transactions. What triggered the suspicion — a chebureki order or taking a loan at your own bank? Why should the customer have to guess? From whom should I be demanding documents?
• A one-day deadline for submitting documents? Seriously? Have you tried getting a 2-NDFL certificate from a company of 1,000 people? That takes at minimum one business day. Yes, there is the public services portal and the Tax Authority's personal account. But will you actually accept files from those as valid documents? I am not sure you will.
• Most staggering of all: the call-centre staff knew nothing about you or your own requirements.

I understand that phone numbers can be spoofed, and so can email senders. But combined, these steps would at least suggest that the caller was actually from the bank's security department, not just from "security".

And one final point. Perhaps a miracle will happen and someone at the bank will read this article. Do you understand that with actions like these you are creating new openings for genuine scammers?

I am not talking about blocking suspicious transactions. I am talking about how you communicate with customers.

Cases like mine will multiply. Before long, people will simply be unable to tell a real bank employee from a fraudster. They will panic about having everything blocked and start handing over SMS codes.

Please fix something in your processes.