The PFR warns about the existence of the so-called “unofficial websites of the Russian Pension Fund,” which provide inaccurate information about pensions and social benefits and questionable services. Such websites are easy to recognize: most of them have the same layout and numerous borrowings from the PFR official website, such as menu elements, sections, video materials and symbols of the Fund. This is how the falsified websites simulate official sources of information and try to look believable. They are using hyperlinks to pages of the Pension Fund’s website and give real telephone numbers of the PFR.
Still, their only purpose is to be a front for questionable services. The poorly structured falsified websites and numerous advertising banners complicate the understanding process. This is done on purpose: an online chat with a “pension lawyer,” who offers solutions to all problems, always comes to rescue of a user confused by the chaotic presentation of information. The chat is brief, and a person seeking a solution is invited to give one’s phone number almost instantly. A call is made shortly, and the person receives an invitation to contact “the legal support center” and get help with receiving the due payments. Of course, the assistance is not free, but the potential victim of “pension lawyers” learns this and about the non-existence of promised payments sometime after.
The Pension Fund hereby informs you that none of those websites has anything to do with the PFR and recommends that Russian citizens do not use the websites to avoid falling victim to inaccurate information and frauds. Official information about all payments provided by the PFR is available on the Pension Fund’s website
pfrf.ru, at the PFR consulting center accessible by dialing 8-800-600-4444 (call for free from any region of Russia), or via the online consulting service.
