Save my life! Supportive therapy is urgently needed. The cost is 7 million 870 thousand rubles "- this is how the description of the profile on Instagram begins. Here are the details for the transfer. On the avatar is a photo of a two-year-old boy, Pavel, who is disabled with SMA (spinal muscular atrophy, a rare congenital disease).
There are about fifty posts in the account, almost every one has a photo of this unfortunate child in bed. He really wants to live. And if you treat, you will live. But foreign drugs are insanely expensive - the indicated cost of the annual course is quite adequate. According to the calculations of the author of the blog (either a member of Pavel's family, or an activist), about four million rubles have already been collected.
People are throwing off little by little, but judging by the comments, they are constantly: “Transferred 500 rubles. Live! "," Strength to you, catch 615 rubles. " etc. The account has over 1600 subscribers. And judging by the comments, they are clearly not indifferent to the fate of little Paul ...
In fact, this is all fake. No Paul exists. Photos and videos of a disabled boy (possibly an orphan) were taken stealthily in a hospital. By the way, the same child appears in a similar "volunteer" account under the name Daniel. He allegedly has cystic fibrosis, he needs money ...
In a couple of photographs there is a woman with dark hair, supposedly the mother of the child, but the picture was taken from such an angle that it is impossible to identify the woman. There are no names other than the child. The only specified mobile number, which, among other things, is being collected, is turned off or is out of the network coverage area.
The whole story described is invented. More precisely, this is a compilation of typical situations that families with children with SMA find themselves in. A noticeable part of the comments about the transfer of money are fake ones, made by fake users solely to promote the account. But, unfortunately, there are real donors who are sure that they helped the disabled person.
Box in law
"According to research, about 14% of all donations in Russia end up in the illegal field," Kira Smirnova, director of the All Together Charitable Organizations Association, told RT. The annual volume of private donations for medical treatment in Russia is estimated at several billion rubles.
It turns out that hundreds of millions of rubles - real money that could have saved someone's lives - goes to scammers disguised as charitable foundations or patients' relatives.
It's worth it for real charitable foundations to declare war on the scammers.
On the initiative of the charitable community - the All Together Association, the Tradition, So-Unification and other large non-profit organizations - on April 1, 2020, the State Duma adopted amendments to the law "On Charitable Activities and Volunteering (Volunteering)", which establish the rules for using so-called boxes for collecting charitable donations. The law was signed by the President and will come into force in October this year.
From that moment on, only charitable and non-profit organizations, whose constituent documents provide for the right to carry out charitable activities, will have the right to collect funds in piggy banks. (An exception was made for religious organizations - they are left with the right to boxes).
The law is useful, but "old school" foundations that collect cash on the streets or in other public places have long been inferior to those operating online.
Public control
Cutting off social media intruders is much more difficult. For example, having found the Instagram account described at the beginning of this article, Yegor Bychkov, the head of the Live, Baby Foundation, turned to the police. And he was refused to initiate a criminal case: a victim is needed for this. That is, you need a person who has somehow suffered from the activities of intruders.
“If a person collected money, for example, for medical treatment, but misled, then this is a fraud, Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, - the lawyer Irina Krasnova comments on the situation. - It is necessary to prove that the funds did not reach the family of that sick child, or even should not have reached. Or the sick child does not exist at all. "
A donor who has been fraudulently defrauded is considered a victim. But finding one is very difficult.
“If a person, under the influence of deception, has transferred less than 2.5 thousand rubles, then the actions of the perpetrators are subject to qualification under Art. 7.27 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation (the guilty person is brought to administrative responsibility). To prosecute the amount of embezzlement should be more than 2.5 thousand rubles, - explains the lawyer Fyodor Bogatyrev. - Since such acts are ongoing and the intent is aimed at obtaining more than 2.5 thousand rubles, with transfers of the order of 500-1000 rubles. several people will have to be installed, whose total contribution will exceed the required threshold. "
That is why practicing lawyers are rarely faced with the fact that persons who collect money "for the treatment of a child" in public transport would be prosecuted: victims-donors give 50-100 rubles each, and it is unrealistic to find them later to collect statements. Donors, too, often have no desire to "get involved", even when they realize that they have been deceived.
Bychkov finds all new similar accounts on social networks almost every day. With a well-trained eye, he notices, for example, that in the allegedly "Saratov" apartment where a sick child lies, inscriptions in Polish flicker - it is clear where the photo and the whole story were stolen from.
“We periodically complain to the administration of social networks that they close such accounts. Naturally, in a reasoned manner - we show what information is fake there, - says Kira Smirnova. “VKontakte” closes accounts for such complaints. Facebook and Instagram are not. "
It is almost unrealistic to block the bank accounts to which the scammers receive donations. The way to solve the problem, according to Kira Smirnova and her colleagues, is to create a working group, which would include representatives, in particular, of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Central Bank.
“The group will be able, for example, to quickly analyze and block the accounts of swindlers based on the results,” explains Smirnova. "And help the police investigate this area."
Proposals for the creation of this group have already been sent to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev, the chairman of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina, the chairman of the board of Sberbank German Gref.
Not only foundations
In fact, it would be wrong to extend the "box" law to wire transfers. The activists themselves admit that there are cases when the patient's family cannot do without private - namely, private - fees directly. Sometimes the fund is overloaded and cannot promptly hire a person. Or, for example, with SMA, the amount for treatment can be in the hundreds of millions - not all funds are ready to work with such amounts.
In theory, intruders can be significantly curbed by regulating private fees.
“There is almost no such fraud in Europe,” explains Kira Smirnova. - For example, in Poland the Ministry of Justice is in charge of regulating fees. Even if the organizer is a private person, he registers his initiative with the submission of passport data. And then he reports where he spent the money. "
It is clear that any bureaucratization, especially in Russia, in the first place will hit those who really need help - especially when there is no time for all the formalities. And Kira Smirnova understands this perfectly, and therefore proposes not to regulate the sphere, but simply to systematically identify intruders. If possible, also hold them accountable. Otherwise, with complete impunity, the number of fraudulent accounts will inevitably exceed requests for help for real patients.
However, the only radical way to get rid of such scammers is to guarantee all citizens of the country absolutely all types of treatment within the framework of the compulsory medical insurance. But this, alas, is not even discussed yet.