Fraudsters in Russia ramp up their phone scams on Friday mornings before noon, according to new analysis from MTS, a leading Russian telecom operator. Nearly 21% of all scam calls occur during this time, when people are less vigilant heading into the weekend. In cities like Krasnodar and St. Petersburg, however, scammers prefer to make calls on Wednesdays.
These scammers tailor their attack times based on the daily habits and age groups of their victims. Younger people-students and teens under 25-receive the most calls between 3 and 4 p.m., when they tend to be more available but less cautious. Common scams in this group involve fake prize offers or impersonations of schools and law enforcement agencies.
Adults aged 35 to 64 are mostly targeted during working hours, especially between 10 a.m. and noon. Scammers lure them with promises of extra income, investment opportunities, or online discounts, exploiting moments when people are focused on work and more likely to fall for quick tricks.
For seniors over 65, fraudsters dial in the mornings, pretending to be government officials or social services. This timing takes advantage of many older people being alone at home and more trusting of official-sounding calls.
Since 2026, scammers have shifted away from indiscriminate robocalls toward highly personalized attacks that sync with the biorhythms and interests of their targets. MTS’s AI-powered service ”MTS Protector” monitors these evolving patterns in real time and blocks suspicious calls before users even answer. In 2025 alone, the service stopped 3.17 billion scam calls across Russia.
These findings highlight how fraudsters are refining their timing and tactics, making advanced AI defenses vital in the fight against phone scams. As these personalized attacks grow more sophisticated, monitoring call patterns by age and time of day will become a key weapon in protecting users.