Fraud

Remember, when changing money you should be on the alert for trickery and fraud. Do not ever exchange money with individuals. As a rule, they offer a better exchange rate, but you risk loosing all your money. In exchange you can receive fraud rubles or just a pack of paper.

If somebody asks you to hold their money for a while do not agree to do so. Nor do we advise you to pick up a purse if you see one on the ground. Otherwise swindlers may accuse you of substitution of the money and demand compensation of the missing sum.

If you fall a victim to fraud, we recommend that you contact the police by dialling 02.

Credit card fraud is common in restaurants and night clubs. Lost or stolen credit cards may be used to purchase some goods or to obtain cash from cash-mashines, provided the swindlers know your private identification number (code). In some cases credit cards are quietly returned to their holders after they have been used to make expensive purchases. For this reason you better not leave your credit cards (and receipt slips that may be copied by the swindlers for illegal operations) anywhere even for a short period of time.

Along with the credit cards such means of payment as traveller's cheques, Euro-cheques and other kinds of cheques may be subjects to criminal encroachment. Illegal use of such cheques is connected with thefts, robberies, fraud, or accidental loss of the traveller's cheques by the legal holders. In these cases, when there is holder's signature on the cheque, a thief forges the secondsignature himself or with the assistance of an accomplice and then obtains the sum stated in the cheque at some financial or other establishment.