Beware of increasingly sophisticated scams

Online and telephone fraud is no longer a strange thing. Despite being warned many times, many people still fall into the trap of criminals with increasingly sophisticated and reckless tricks. The cases recently discovered by the police force continue to be a wake-up call for every citizen to protect their own property.

Vu Van Hai - one of the two ringleaders of the "cutting stones to find jade" case, at the investigation agency.

Recently, the Investigation Police Agency of Quang Ninh Province Police has initiated a case, prosecuting 30 defendants in a sophisticated fraud ring called "cutting stones to find jade". The subjects, including Tran Thi Chi and Vu Van Hai, both residing in Mong Cai City, were identified as the ringleaders, colluding with a number of Chinese subjects who rented a house in Dong Hung City to organize cross-border fraud. Here, they recruited Vietnamese people to go to China, organized livestream rooms on social networks such as TikTok, Facebook... to stage "stone cutting" sessions pretending to find precious jade, luring viewers to participate in betting.

Lieutenant Colonel Vu Van Huong, Deputy Head of the Team for Prevention and Investigation of Social Evils and Human Trafficking, Criminal Police Department, Quang Ninh Provincial Police, said: Initially, low bets will be “won” and refunded to create trust. When the bet amount increases, the subjects use fake stones mixed with paint to deceive the players. After the victims “win the precious gem” and transfer money to pay the “fee” to receive the prize, the group immediately blocks communication and appropriates the property. Only when the money is lost do the victims realize they have been scammed.

Quang Ninh Provincial Police worked with representatives of Quang Ninh Clean Water Joint Stock Company on fraudulent tricks of impersonating company employees to appropriate people's property.

Not only with the above form of fraud, targeting essential consumer services of the people, the subjects also use many tricks to make people easily fall into traps. At Quang Ninh Clean Water Joint Stock Company, during the recent April 30 and May 1 holidays, this unit received information that 4 customers were victims of fraudsters impersonating employees of the water company. Using the trick of calling impersonating the company's customer care staff, the subjects called to ask people to declare an increase in water usage, urge them to pay water bills, and offer promotional programs to attract, trick customers and appropriate property.

Reality also shows that, although the authorities continuously propagate and warn about the tricks of fraudsters, many people still become victims of this crime. Since the beginning of the year, the Criminal Police Department of the Provincial Police alone has received dozens of reports from citizens who have been defrauded of property worth billions of dong.

According to the authorities, criminals are increasingly using sophisticated tricks and in many different forms to deceive people to appropriate property; more than half of these are carried out in cyberspace. Among them, some forms of online fraud that many people often fall prey to are: Impersonating shippers to scam money and install malware on phones; deceiving people to perform tasks to receive high commissions; sending fake links to steal bank information; transferring money to the wrong account; impersonating support services to recover money that has been scammed; impersonating authorities to call to investigate... In addition, scammers also create fake investment activities to call for investment with profits many times higher than the bank interest rate ceiling...

Fraudsters also often take advantage of events and new policy mechanisms to impersonate authorities to carry out scams such as: Updating VNeID information, updating electricity and water records... In this method, they will initially ask the victim to come to the administrative headquarters to do it; then they will inform that it can be done online and ask the victim to connect via Zalo, Facebook, Telegram or some other social networking platforms. After connecting with the victim, the scammers will send a link containing malicious code, from which they can control the device, access personal data, bank account information, and perform illegal transactions...

According to the authorities, taking advantage of the summer vacation, when many parents are looking for information about summer camps, many scammers have faked information pages about summer camp activities to scam; impersonated universities to scam students... To prevent being scammed, people need to proactively seek information and form the habit of cross-checking when receiving information on the internet. Absolutely do not follow instructions to transfer money to acquaintances online. When detecting a suspicious case, promptly report it to the nearest police station for guidance and handling.

Le Nam

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/canh-giac-voi-cac-thu-doan-lua-dao-ngay-cang-tinh-vi-3359560.html