Beware of tricks to take advantage of the tuition exemption policy to defraud people

Immediately after the Politburo decided to exempt all tuition fees for preschool children and students from primary to high school nationwide, some bad guys took advantage of this policy to commit fraud and appropriate property in many forms. In this situation, the functional sector in Ha Nam issued an official dispatch requesting agencies and units to propagate and warn about the methods and tricks of taking advantage of the policy to defraud and appropriate people's property.

Accordingly, on March 13, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued Official Dispatch No. 221 to departments, branches, sectors, the Fatherland Front Committee, socio- political organizations, People's Committees of districts, towns and cities, and Ha Nam Newspaper on propaganda and warnings about methods and tricks of taking advantage of the tuition exemption policy for students for the purpose of fraud and appropriation of property. Currently, scammers often use methods and tricks such as: using spam phone numbers, fake social network accounts; impersonating school staff, education departments or banks to call and text students' parents to notify them of refunds of previously paid tuition fees. Or, the subjects call and text students' parents to provide personal information, bank accounts, OTP codes or access strange links to receive refunds of previously paid tuition fees. After having all the information, the subject logged into the parents' bank account and made money transfers to appropriate people's assets.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Son, Chairman of the Education Trade Union, immediately after the issuance of Official Dispatch No. 221 of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Department of Education and Training (DOET) issued Official Dispatch No. 365 dated March 14 to the Department of Education and Training of districts, towns and cities; high schools, provincial Continuing Education and Vocational Guidance Centers, Vocational Education and Continuing Education Centers, Nguyen Tat Thanh Secondary and High School, FPT Secondary and High School. In this dispatch, the DOET requested heads of agencies and units to step up propaganda measures and warn about methods, tricks, and signs of identifying subjects who take advantage of the tuition exemption policy for students for the purpose of fraudulently appropriating property. Thereby, helping all students, parents as well as officials, civil servants, public employees, and workers in agencies and units to recognize and raise awareness of new tricks of scammers who take advantage of the tuition exemption policy for students to appropriate property.

Tuition exemption policy for students takes effect from September 1, 2025.

At Tran Quoc Toan Secondary School (Phu Ly City), the school leaders also promptly informed about the forms of fraud by the subjects; provided the content of the directive documents of the City Department of Education and Training on propaganda for teachers, students and parents to identify official information, and recommended that parents keep in touch with the school. Teacher Nguyen Xuan Binh, Principal of Tran Quoc Toan Secondary School said: To do a good job of propaganda and warning to the people, homeroom teachers play an important role. Therefore, the school has asked homeroom teachers to directly inform parents through the class zalo group about this issue so that parents can grasp the situation, raise vigilance, and closely coordinate with the school to avoid risks and fraud. Up to now, the school has not received any feedback from parents about being scammed out of tuition fees... Following the direction of the industry and school leaders, the teaching staff has maintained close contact with parents, clearly informing them about the school's collections and payments; proactively exchanging and providing information about forms of fraud and taking advantage of the Party and State's tuition exemption policy by bad actors, helping to raise vigilance among parents and students.

Schools have disseminated to teachers, parents and students the signs of fraud: First, schools andeducational institutions do not ask parents to provide bank account information, OTP codes via phone, text messages or strange links. Second, scammers often call from phone numbers using words that urge, pressure, and even threaten victims to quickly follow instructions. Third, fake messages often contain unclear links, asking parents to log in to strange websites... Thanks to that, many parents have a clear understanding of the nature of the problem. Mr. Cao Van Tiep, Don Xa commune, Binh Luc district shared: We are workers, working at the company all day, do not have much time to follow the news. However, through our children's class group, we have been informed of the situation by the homeroom teacher and are extremely vigilant against these scams.

Teacher Luong Van Duong, Principal of A Phu Ly High School, said that the tuition exemption policy for students of our Party and State is a popular policy. However, taking advantage of this policy, many people have used the name of educational institutions to scam parents and people... Therefore, educational institutions need to improve their responsibility, step up propaganda work, and disseminate the situation to parents and students. Students themselves need to clearly understand the information of the incident. To do so, schools must thoroughly understand the content of the directive documents of the Department of Education and Training in the first meetings of the week so that students can grasp the tricks of fraud and discuss with their families to be vigilant, not falling into the traps of bad actors.

Jiangnan

Source: https://baohanam.com.vn/xa-hoi/canh-giac-voi-thu-doan-loi-dung-chinh-sach-mien-hoc-phi-de-lua-dao-nguoi-dan-158293.html