08-06-2023 11:12

Estonian colleagues help protect refugees against scammers

Last summer colleagues in Estonia got together to find new ways to help Ukrainian refugees. Their meetings sparked the idea for a new local volunteering initiative – one that protects refugees from scammers and helps them navigate Estonia’s digital spaces.

When tragic events take place, some seek opportunity in the vulnerability of others. One such opportunity is financial fraud, where scammers use a variety of tricks to steal identities and credit card information for personal gain.

As in many countries, this has also become a serious problem in Estonia, with 473 cases of bank fraud and a total loss of over EUR 2m in 2022. And with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, scammers now have a new group to target – Ukrainian refugees.

To prevent exploitation and help refugees navigate Estonia’s many digital spaces – often overwhelming for newcomers – a local Nordea community engagement team has partnered with the Integration Foundation to provide them with fraud prevention and digital skills training.

“We feel that this is an important way to help refugees integrate into our society, while enabling our employees to share their expertise,” says Liina Sinijärv Nurhan, Management Support Officer and Community Engagement Project Coordinator.

Awareness is the key to fraud prevention

The training consists of two parts. Run in Russian, the initiative was launched in September 2022. It has already seen high levels of interest and was even picked up by Russian-language TV channel Kanal 7.

One volunteer of the project is Ruslan Gusseinov, AML & Sanctions Processing Specialist.

“When people are stressed, shocked and vulnerable, they make an easy target,” he says. “If someone tells them they’ve won money, they of course hope it’s true. It’s our goal to make people aware.”

Ruslan Gusseinov has also been scammed several times himself. He wants his experiences to serve as warnings for others, and often gives refugees tips and tricks from his own life to help them detect fraud. Examples include an email claiming he had won a million dollars – or checking his account only to find two outgoing EUR 500 transactions to India.

According to Ruslan Gusseinov, fraud has changed a lot in recent years, and phone calls have become common practice. “Many years ago, these calls weren't investigated in detail, and unfortunately a lot of people lost huge amounts of money. Nowadays, it’s clear there is a pattern to the schemes in Estonia. One way to detect scamming is that callers often have a strong accent and appear to be calling from another country.”

Giving refugees a warm welcome

While the initiative is about digital skills and fraud prevention, it’s also about helping refugees integrate. “We want to help people get to know more about Estonia and feel at home here,” explains Oksana Kotkas, AML & Sanctions Processing Specialist, who has also volunteered in the programme.

Oksana Kotkas, AML & Sanctions Processing Specialist.

Oksana Kotkas had already volunteered by sorting out items at the food bank, but found herself wanting to do more. “If my heart tells me to do something, I do it,” she says. “And I knew I wanted to volunteer again. I just wasn’t sure how.”

After seeing an Intranet post inviting employees to become part of a Nordea community engagement project team, she was quick to sign up. In the summer the team got together to brainstorm for ways to help refugees – and by the autumn they were already delivering their first anti-fraud workshops.

She encourages her colleagues to try out the project team if they are curious. “Everyone is different. New people bring new ideas on how we can support and share our expertise. So when you join, you are leaving an imprint on the work we are doing – making a difference in a unique way.”

Since September around 30 employees have been volunteering in the programme which will continue together with the Integration Foundation.

About the programme

The refugee programme is one of Nordea’s community engagement activities. Through our programmes and partnerships, we engage in the societies we’re a part of by training participants to build successful financial lives, use digital tools for daily banking and start and grow their own companies.