Beware of new tricks to call for charity on social networks

Taking advantage of the kindness of the community and the confusion of families when facing an incident, bad guys impersonated people calling for support to appropriate money donated by benefactors.

On October 26, Lam Dong Newspaper, Radio and Television published information about the incident in which two brothers were stabbed on Duc Thanh Bridge (Phan Thiet Ward, Lam Dong Province). The victim's family was in a very difficult situation. Understanding the situation, Mr. Tran Ngoc Ty, a reporter for Lam Dong Newspaper, Radio and Television, used his personal Facebook account to call for support for the family's funeral arrangements.

Thanks to the appeal of Mr. Ty and many other social media accounts, by the evening of the same day, the amount of donations through the account of Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc (victim's sister) had exceeded 130 million VND. In addition, many people also came directly to share and help the family overcome the loss.

Bad guys created a fake zalo account with the same name and profile picture as Mr. Tran Ngoc Ty's Facebook account.

However, by the evening of October 26, a zalo account named “Tran Ngoc Ty” contacted Ms. Thuy. This account used a profile picture identical to the Facebook account that Mr. Tran Ngoc Ty used to call for support. This person texted to request that all donations be transferred to another bank account with the reason “for the charity group to compile and make a table for direct handover”. They also fabricated a specific schedule and time to create trust.

The subjects asked the family to transfer the donation money to another account.

However, out of vigilance, the victim's family did not transfer money as requested but called Mr. Tran Ngoc Ty directly to confirm the information. Thanks to that, they discovered that the zalo account named "Tran Ngoc Ty" was fake and had been set up by scammers with the purpose of defrauding and appropriating the money that benefactors had donated.

The incident was then reported to the authorities. If the family had not calmly verified, the entire amount of community donations could have been appropriated. The incident shows that fraud methods are increasingly sophisticated, with criminals taking advantage of kindness and pitiful circumstances to profit, regardless of ethics.

This is a new form of fraud, people need to be extremely vigilant when receiving requests to transfer money from strange accounts, even when seeing familiar images or names. Before making a transaction, you should verify information through multiple channels and immediately report to the police when detecting suspicious signs for timely guidance and handling.

Source: https://baolamdong.vn/canh-giac-thu-doan-moi-keu-goi-tu-thien-tren-mang-xa-hoi-398062.html