One phone call — and 103,000 gone: in Mykolaiv yet another woman fell for a fake banker

According to a report from the Mykolaiv region police dated April 3 2026, a complaint about fraud was filed at Police Department No. 2 of the Mykolaiv District Directorate by a 61-year-old city resident. The victim said she received a call from an unknown person who introduced himself as a bank security officer and claimed that it was allegedly necessary to urgently “strengthen the protection” of her card account.

Under the pressure of this story, the woman followed the caller’s instructions and independently transferred funds to an account that was actually controlled by the fraudsters. As a result, she lost more than 103 thousand hryvnias. Investigators have opened a pre-trial investigation under Part 1 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – fraud. The sanction of this article provides for up to three years restriction of liberty.

The police again remind that scammers most often act through fear and haste: they frighten with “account hacking”, “danger to the card” or “suspicious transactions”, after which they force the person to hurriedly follow their instructions. Law enforcement urges not to disclose to strangers card details, CVV code, one-time passwords, not to follow suspicious links and not to make any transfers at the instruction of strangers. In case of a suspicious call, you should immediately end the conversation and call the bank yourself at the official number.

Reminder: previously we wrote:

• Sought a state payment but helped fraudsters: a woman in Mykolaiv region was cheated out of nearly 60 thousand
• One code – minus 100 thousand: pseudo-bankers completely emptied a woman’s account in Mykolaiv region
• Kept savings and lost 175 thousand: in Mykolaiv a woman fell victim to phone scammers
• Scammers deceived Mykolaiv region residents out of over 600 thousand hryvnias
• Pseudo-bankers and crypto traps: Mykolaiv residents were defrauded of large sums