A child transferred money to scammers: what should parents do?
18+ This material (information) was produced, distributed and (or) sent by a foreign agent Media project “New Tab” or relates to the activities of a foreign agent Media project “New Tab” Author Editorial board “New Tab” June 8, 2026 read: 11 min.
Teenagers are increasingly becoming victims of telephone scammers: frightened by the attackers, they take money and jewelry out of their apartments. Sometimes these cases end tragically: children commit suicide or leave home. “New Tab” tells the story of 11-year-old Marina from Yekaterinburg, who gave half a million rubles from her parents’ savings to scammers.
The names of the characters have been changed. Real names are known to the editors
Tatyana, a realtor from Yekaterinburg, was returning home when she ran into her 11-year-old daughter Marina at the entrance. She rushed past her mother into the street. Tatyana barely had time to ask: “Where are you going?” “Go for a walk, they’re waiting for me!” - she muttered and ran away.
Tatyana recalls: that day some things seemed strange to her, but she did not attach any importance to it. A camera strap was sticking out of the closet where equipment is stored, although my husband usually puts everything away neatly. Marina returned and went to bed early, without even kissing her mother before bed, as is customary in the family. “Apparently she’s tired,” thought Tatyana. Later, looking at her daughter, she saw that she could not sleep: “Well, mom, leave me alone!”
The next morning, Dmitry, Tatyana’s husband, looked into the box with equipment - there he kept half a million rubles in cash. Not a single bill was found in the box. “We were robbed,” he immediately told his wife. “But there were no strangers,” Tatyana answered. “Maybe you yourself put it in another place and forgot?”
The daughter was at school at that moment. Tatyana called the teacher and asked to send the child home. Marina came running and answered her parents’ question about money: “No, I don’t know anything.” But after a couple of minutes she left the room with the words: “You can take me to an orphanage. I did it." She didn't cry. On the contrary, she was focused.
In 2023 and 2024, security forces recorded about 6 thousand cases in which children became victims of fraud. And in 2025, such cases doubled - about 12 thousand . The average damage per person is almost 400 thousand rubles, but in some cases scammers receive millions .
Dmitry is a former investigator. He asked his daughter not to worry and to tell everything in order. I recorded their conversation on video. Tatyana stood and listened: “I was shaking, especially when my daughter said that she would have done everything that [the scammers] told her. It felt like my family was literally fucked.”
Marina, like all her friends, spends a lot of time chatting on Telegram. Last November, through the popular dating bot “Daivinchik”, she met a girl the same age. We talked about hobbies, Marina said that she was studying guitar and vocals. It quickly became clear: a new friend studied at the same music school that Marina goes to, but moved to another area. For about a week, the girls corresponded, discussed classes and teachers. We agreed to meet: the girl from the chat had some kind of poster that she wanted to give to Marina.
Fraudsters use different methods: sending phishing links, often related to online games, or using social engineering. They meet children and teenagers in chat rooms, online games, and introduce themselves as their favorite bloggers or acquaintances from a section or summer camp . Correspondence can last several days or several months. Later, Tatyana looked at Marina’s correspondence: “The style there was far from childish, but like that of a good psychologist.”
Older children, like adults, can simply receive an SMS that their account on State Services or in a banking application has been hacked - with a phone number to call “to recover.”
Sometimes such cases end tragically. At the beginning of 2025, in St. Petersburg, a 17-year-old boy committed suicide after transferring his father’s money to scammers. Last fall in Moscow, a 16-year-old schoolgirl, at the direction of scammers , tried to saw through a home safe with a grinder : a fire started in the apartment, the girl was hospitalized. After transferring money from their parents' accounts, teenagers can go spend the night on the street: scammers convince them that they cannot appear at home the next night. There have been cases where children were kidnapped to demand ransom from their parents.
On the day of meeting Marina, a girl from the chat wrote: “I can’t find your house, send me a geolocation.” Marina shared her geolocation. In response, she received a message: “Thank you, Russian ***, now we will launch a rocket into your house, wait.”
Almost immediately, Marina received a call from a man who introduced himself as an investigator. He explained: she sent the geolocation, because of this, her parents could be accused of aiding a terrorist organization. Mom will be sent to prison, dad will be taken to SVO, and Marina herself will be sent to an orphanage. But this can be avoided: Marina just needs to find all the money she has at home and submit it for examination. There they will establish that the money was not earned through criminal means, the family will be saved, and the banknotes will be returned after examination. It is very important now not to call anyone, not to talk to anyone, and to do everything quickly while your parents are not at home.
Marina is 11 years old, her father is a lawyer. She doubted: “How can I verify that you are an investigator?” The interlocutor gave his phone number, last name, and gave Marina time to check on the Internet. Marina actually found such an investigator. Confidence was also added by the fact that the man who called told her the last name, first name and patronymic of her parents.
At some point the connection was interrupted, and Marina immediately called her father. He didn’t answer the phone: he was at a court hearing. “I also had a missed call from her, I didn’t answer, I was on a deal,” says Tatyana. Afterwards she asked Marina: didn’t she really have any doubts when they said she couldn’t talk to her parents? The daughter replied: of course, she did, but on the phone they said that if you obey and solve everything right away, nothing will happen to mom and dad.
Psychologist Ekaterina Marakova explains: adolescence is one of the most critical periods of personality development. Fraudsters know this and manipulate the mental characteristics of children and adolescents. The opinion of parents at this age becomes less significant, and the authority of the social group and the need to feel belonging, on the contrary, increases. Fraudsters pretend to be “one of their own”: they use slang, popular trends, and gain confidence. One of the needs of a teenager is to prove his maturity. Therefore, scammers offer easy money or the opportunity to help those who pose as authorities: this is how they show the child that they take him seriously.
In addition, scammers insist on haste, threaten to arrest parents or promise millions in winnings - this works because the teenager’s nervous system is not yet fully formed and is reactive, emotions outstrip control. This is how teenagers transfer money from their parents’ accounts to scammers, give cash and valuables to couriers “for verification”, become such couriers or “droppers” themselves - and often later cannot explain why they did this.
After the connection failed, the scammers called back and never let Marina go. The call lasted about three hours. Via video link, Marina showed the apartment, and she was told where to look for money, what boxes and drawers to check. It was necessary not only to find the banknotes, but also to count their number “for verification.”
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At some point they said on the phone: Mom is coming home, quickly get out and get in a taxi. Marina ran into her mother at the entrance. The car was already waiting outside. The girl was brought to the nearest shopping center five minutes from home. They told me which card I should put the money on. But the ATM didn't work. The car left, Marina went to another shopping center - about 20 minutes on foot. All this time, while she was carrying half a million in her bag, she was in touch with the “investigator.” Then the girl told her mother that her hand “withered” because of the heavy bag. Finally, the money was transferred, the phone call ended, and Marina returned home.
“She did everything like an excellent student,” says Tatyana. “Everything, as adults said, to make mom and dad feel good.”
The next morning, Marina herself called the person she considered to be the investigator. He suddenly picked up the phone and said: “You’re a fool, no one will return anything to you.”
Dmitry contacted the police. They explained to him that there are many such statements, and among the victims there are many adult men and grandmothers who “at least have a stake on their head.” They offered to walk with the child along the entire route and reproduce everything. But they warned that the likelihood of finding scammers and returning the money is very low. The father decided: “It’s not the money for me to bother my child like this now.” Tatyana says: “This is a lesson for everyone, a reminder that you always need to be on your guard. No matter how much you want a quiet life in which you can trust everyone, you cannot trust.”
For the first month after the incident, Marina walked around with a push-button telephone. She herself felt calmer this way, says Tatyana. She found a psychologist for her daughter: “We discussed everything with her, but I was not present during the conversations. I don’t know what she explained to her, but everything was done correctly, the child did not withdraw, but flies like a bird.” Now Marina is using a smartphone again, but without social networks and instant messengers: school teachers send all important information to Tatyana, and Marina talks with her friends by voice.
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“I think it’s not only in our family that these chats have swayed everyone,” says Tatyana. - Well, take it and write a text message or call. So he and the girls calmly call each other. Again, if anything happens, you can hear where the conversation is going.”
They try not to remember the situation in the family.
Tatyana wrote a large and detailed text about what happened and published it on her VK page. She repeats several times how important it is to teach children to say “No” and maintain trusting relationships in the family. It turned out that there were several similar stories in her circle: both her friend’s neighbors and her colleagues. “The main thing is that the girls are all normal, they work hard, they study well - but this is not an indicator here,” Tatyana shares with New Tab. “Some poor student will definitely be sent away - and will remain safe.”
In her post addressed to her parents, Tatyana wrote in capslock: “If you are not dying, pick up the phone when your children call you.”
How to protect your child from scammers?
Advice from Ekaterina Marakova, psychologist and psychotherapist
What can parents do to protect their child?
It is important to form absolute confidence in the child: no matter what happens, the parents are on his side. The “golden rule” might sound like this: “I will never swear if trouble happens and you need to be rescued from it. First we eliminate the danger, and then we discuss and figure out what happened.”
The child should always have at hand (for example, saved in the phone) a “safety list”: telephone numbers of all people, including parents, to whom he can turn for immediate help.
The child should know: intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies never call or write to children on social networks and instant messengers, never involve children in investigations and operations, and can never demand personal data or parental bank account information from a child.
It is important to discuss what to do if an unfamiliar or unfamiliar adult writes on social networks and asks you to do something and not tell your parents about it. Any trigger phrases like “This will be our secret”, “This is the secret of the investigation”, “You know how to keep secrets”, “You are already an adult, I believe in you”, “You are not a coward”, “Are you weak?” should arouse immediate suspicion and a desire to tell parents about this, who will not scold, but will help sort it out and stop unwanted communication.
It is worth discussing with your child that now with the help of AI it is possible to generate voices and even videos of relatives. You can come up with some kind of code phrase in the family so that in any incomprehensible situation the child can make sure that one of the relatives is really talking to him, and simulate situations in which this phrase needs to be remembered.
It is important to tell your child that scammers can manipulate using the feeling of being in a hurry. In this case, it is important to follow the “10 minutes” algorithm: if someone demands immediate action from a child - no matter the police, the FSB or the class teacher - he needs to learn a routine excuse (for example, “I have a lesson now”), take a break for 10-15 minutes, and at this time urgently contact the parents.
In case of threats and blackmail, it is also important for the child to know: he has not done anything wrong, he does not need to enter into dialogue, it is enough to take screenshots of the correspondence, block the contact and tell his parents.
What exactly should you not do?
Violation of privacy and attempts to monitor all social networks and correspondence: this will undermine trust in parents, it will be difficult to turn to them for help, which means the child will become more vulnerable.
Notations, educational conversations, a complete ban on gadgets and social networks. This also undermines trust.
What to do if a child has already suffered from scammers?
Advice from Ekaterina Marakova, psychologist and psychotherapist
It is important for parents to process their emotions without pouring them out on their children: your panic, anger and sadness will only increase stress and guilt in your child.
It is important to shift the focus from “Who is to blame?” to “What can we do?” and move on to specific actions: calling the police, calling the bank, blocking a bank card.
To relieve a child’s panic, you can directly tell them how angry you are at the scammers. This way you will let him know that your anger is not directed at him and that he was deceived by professional criminals who easily mislead adults.
If your child makes physical contact, hug him. Feeling physically safe is very important.
The most important thing is that the child is alive and is next to you.
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