Under the guise of Pension Fund employees, scammers visit Irkutsk residents at home

In Irkutsk Region, fraud cases have increased, when criminals posing as Pension Fund employees go door to door and offer to replace SNILS or sign a contract with a private pension fund. The PFR stresses no SNILS replacement is being done, fund employees do not go door to door, and all citizens pension savings are protected and cannot be lost due to such tricks.

Calls to the PFR Branch’s “hotline” have once again increased from citizens reporting people going door to door, introducing themselves as employees of the Pension Fund. The fraudsters offer to replace SNILS with a new one and, allegedly for this purpose, ask to copy the passport details of trusting Irkutsk residents.
The scammers tell citizens that the Pension Fund is carrying out a replacement of SNILS, and that if they do not replace their SNILS, the person will lose the right to a pension.
The press service of the PFR branch in the region officially states that the information about replacing SNILS is false, and that Fund employees never go door to door.
- The Pension Fund is not carrying out any replacement of SNILS. SNILS (the insurance number of an individual personal account) is assigned to a person once for life. This personal account stores information about all of a citizen’s pension rights. And if a person has several employers at the same time, all information and contributions are recorded on this single account. It is important to remember that even in the event of loss of the insurance certificate, the data on the pension rights the citizen has will not disappear anywhere. In place of the lost document, a duplicate is issued with the same SNILS, but this can only be done in the Pension Fund by the citizen submitting the appropriate application. The involvement of any intermediaries in obtaining/issuing a duplicate insurance certificate is not permitted, - emphasized Irina Kosykh, head of the department for organizing interaction with insured persons at the PFR branch in the Irkutsk Region.
In addition, the fraudsters “work on” residents and offer them to conclude an agreement with a non-state pension fund. Explaining their offer by saying that allegedly only four non-state pension funds have remained on the market, and the rest have closed.
For this reason, citizens may lose all their savings. Moreover, they are offered to conclude the agreement right on the spot.
The regional PFR branch officially states that Fund employees do not work to encourage citizens to choose a method of forming pension savings, especially at home.
- The information that only 4 non-state pension funds have remained on the market has no basis whatsoever. As of today, 28 non-state pension funds have already joined the state system for guaranteeing the safety of pension savings. But even if some non-state pension fund does not go through all the necessary procedures and is not admitted to the market, it is important to understand that absolutely all pension savings that were transferred to this NPF will definitely be returned to the Pension Fund of Russia. And then the citizen will be able to make a new choice at their own discretion. It is also important to know that even if a person has concluded an agreement to transfer their pension savings with some non-state pension fund, this agreement will not be considered until the citizen confirms their intention with the appropriate application, - explained Boris Dymyn, head of the department for organizing and accounting for the investment process at the PFR branch in the Irkutsk Region.