Being cheated out of money when registering for a run through a fake fanpage: The person involved is helpless

With the good intention of contributing some of his strength and money to the less fortunate, a retiree living in Hanoi was scammed out of 20 million VND when he registered to participate in a community race, through a fanpage named the 2025 walk-run race for Agent Orange victims.

"Trick" is too attractive

On Facebook, the fanpage "WALKING - RUNNING FOR VICTIMS OF AGENT ORANGE 2025" has more than 3,000 likes and 3,500 followers. This page introduces itself as a "Community organization, charity organization". Recently, this page posted an article introducing the event of walking - running for victims of Agent Orange 2025, which is meant to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the Vietnam Agent Orange Disaster (August 10, 1961 - August 10, 2025), organized by the Association of Victims of Agent Orange.

Thanh Nien Newspaper contacted a representative of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin and received a response that the association currently does not have a fanpage posting about organizing any running events like the above.

A representative of the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin confirmed that the association is not currently organizing any races.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

Accordingly, to attract more participants, the fanpage "WALKING - RUNNING FOR AGENT ORANGE VICTIMS 2025" posted an article with an impressive "invitation". The organizers' (OC) wish is to raise funds to support victims of Agent Orange/dioxin in Vietnam; spread the message of humanity, call on the community to act together for the less fortunate; arouse the spirit of sportsmanship , positive lifestyle, and community connection. Race information: for all subjects, from individuals, families, groups, and businesses; organized online; when successfully registered, each athlete will receive a pair of shoes with integrated chip technology connected to the application of the BTC to accumulate distance; for each completed kilometer, they will receive 5,000 VND to build the Agent Orange Victims Support Fund.

Participant benefits: receive a certificate of completion of the race; have the opportunity to participate in a lucky draw and receive meaningful gifts from sponsors such as t-shirts, hats, shoes, bluetooth headphones and souvenirs from the Organizing Committee; health check-up vouchers for the whole family; participate in community activities with the Organizing Committee nationwide.

With easy registration and participation (online), attractive benefits, and profound humanistic meaning, this fanpage has received attention. Below the comment section, many people praised the meaning of the event and expressed their desire to participate.

Sophisticated and skillful tricks to build trust

Upon receiving a race registration request, the admin (group administrator) will send a link for the person who wants to participate to fill in the information. Then, the participant is asked to download the Lotus application and contact the consultant, to complete the final approval step (ie participate in the survey) to participate in the above charity run. This is where the scam appears!

At this time, Ms. PLH (63 years old), a retired official living in Hanoi , successfully installed the Lotus application and contacted the consultant. Before participating in the survey, Ms. H. was advised as follows: "After completing this second selection round, the athletes will be officially approved to become athletes of the 2025 walk-run for Agent Orange victims. During the selection period, I require you to concentrate highly and be online regularly to receive notifications from the system.

Before receiving the survey, I have a few important things to remind the athletes: do not do it yourself without my instructions; do not exceed the survey time limit; pay attention to the transaction content, product value, order survey, and product interaction survey linked in the survey; during the process of receiving the survey, if there is any problem that you do not understand and need to be answered, please ask me immediately for support. Special note: when the survey is delivered, you have the right to accept or not accept it. But when you have received the survey, you are required to complete the survey and not make too many mistakes to directly affect the credit score on your personal profile (the initial credit score is 100/100) then the system will confirm the completion of the survey and pass that survey to pay you.

Talking to Thanh Nien , Ms. H. said that the first order was a pair of shoes worth 2.39 million VND. "I thought it was a pair of shoes with a chip that the organizers would send me to participate in online running to count the number of kilometers," Ms. H. recalled. After clicking on the order, Ms. H. was instructed to transfer money to the organizers' bank account. Immediately after the successful transfer, the amount of 2.39 million VND was immediately returned to Ms. H.

This is a trick to build trust, attracting subscribers to continue participating in surveys with higher value orders.

Ms. H. said: "After paying for the first order and getting a refund immediately, I continued to participate in the second survey phase, called the multi-order phase, which means I had to pay for 3 consecutive products. The first product cost 5.2 million VND, product 2 cost 15.7 million VND, and product 3 cost up to 39.9 million VND. I transferred the first 2 products, totaling 20.9 million VND. By the third product, my account no longer had enough money."

"...due to gullibility"

After her account was depleted, Ms. H. contacted the consultant to ask for a refund of the payment for the first two products, but received an indifferent answer, that participants were not allowed to leave the survey halfway. "The consultant said that when I had enough money, I would notify them to extend the survey time. If I was not sure, I would report to the authorities," Ms. H. expressed helplessness.

Since then, Ms. H. has not been able to contact the consultant and had to regretfully lose more than 20 million VND. It is known that this is the amount of money she saved from her monthly pension (about 6 million VND per month).

"My husband and children have repeatedly advised me not to participate in programs like this. I am gullible, found the event very humane and also love running, so I wanted to contribute a part to the unfortunate circumstances. But I did not expect to lose money for nothing," Ms. H. confided.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/bi-lua-tien-khi-dang-ky-chay-bo-qua-fanpage-gia-mao-nguoi-trong-cuoc-bat-luc-185250712183033722.htm