In recent days, social media forums have been buzzing with information about a person losing a billion dong when booking a hotel room on a Facebook fanpage with a blue tick named Minawa Kenh ga Resort & Spa Ninh Binh .
Confirming that she was scammed, Ms. VTT ( Hai Phong ) told VTC News reporter about the sophisticated tricks of the scammers that caused her to lose billions of dong in just a few hours.
Ms. T. said that on January 24, she researched and contacted the fanpage Minawa Kenh ga Resort & Spa Ninh Binh to book a hotel room. Here, Ms. T. received enthusiastic advice. " Because I have booked rooms for travel several times through this form and it was convenient, I did not think twice when contacting to book a room," Ms. T. said.
Contacting the blue tick fanpage to book a hotel, Ms. T. was scammed out of more than 1 billion VND. (Screenshot)
A few days later, Ms. T. received a call from the Messenger application (Facebook's messaging application) of this fanpage informing her that there were almost no rooms available and urging her to put down a deposit to hold the room or else there would be no room to rent.
"Because I trusted the previous times and had a lot of work near Tet, I asked for a money transfer method. After that, I transferred a deposit of 6.5 million VND to reserve 2 hotel rooms," said Ms. T.
At this point, the scammers started to "play tricks" when they informed her that her transaction was not recognized due to incorrect transfer content. Ms. T. was asked to copy the code provided by the resort into the transfer content for the accounting department to confirm.
The scammers said that if she did the right thing, the accounting department would refund the initial deposit because it was transferred by mistake. Then, they continued to ask Ms. T. to activate the VNpay e-wallet to be able to receive this amount back.
"They didn't say anything about transferring money, they just instructed me to update my VNpay account, which made me very subjective and didn't think about being scammed. To create more trust, those people also called me on video to guide me through the steps. They also added noises like the sound of typing on a computer keyboard, the sound of consultants consulting other customers to prove that there were many people like me. Therefore, they made me feel safe and subjectively listen to them," Ms. T. recalled.
After transferring money many times, Ms. T. was scammed out of more than 1 billion VND. (Screenshot)
The video tutorial content was very blurry and confusing. Ms. T. watched it many times but did not know how to do it correctly. At this time, the subjects lured Ms. T. to the money transfer section, entered the code in the amount box with the content of activating VNpay.
The scammers sent Ms. T. a photo of the content "Transaction failed" and asked to enter the VNpay authentication code to receive money back from the business. Because of stress and wanting to get back the original amount, and being constantly pressured to enter the authentication code, Ms. T. went to her banking application, entered the VNpay code with the numbers sent by the scammers.
Ms. T. transferred the amounts of 9.5 million VND, 125.6 million VND and 379.6 million VND respectively. When the last amount was transferred, 485.6 million VND, Ms. T. felt confused so she asked the other party for the resort manager's number, but when she asked for support, the phone was hung up.
"When I transferred money, I saw that the recipient address was the company's address, so I was not cautious and followed the instructions. When I finally transferred the money and saw that I was wondering, the scammers immediately blocked my contact and even shut down my Facebook account. At this point, I realized that I had been scammed, so I looked up the resort's hotline number. However, the resort confirmed that the fanpage I was transacting with was fake, and that this unit also did not own any company with the same name as the owner of the bank account working with me," Ms. T. recalled.
Immediately afterwards, Ms. T. went to the police to report the incident and at the same time asked her friend to post the information on social media to warn others.
" It's been about 10 days since the incident, my mentality has stabilized, but I'm still worried, scared and confused. In just a few hours, I lost more than 1 billion VND despite hearing frequent warnings about scams. These people have a really sophisticated plan to manipulate people's minds," Ms. T. warned.
Regarding the above incident, the leader of Ninh Binh Department of Tourism said that he had received information about a tourist booking a Ninh Binh tour online and being scammed out of 1 billion VND. "After receiving the above information, the department assigned the functional department to work with Minawa Kenh Ga resort in Gia Vien district to guide the handling and communicate to tourists," said the leader of Ninh Binh Department of Tourism.
According to this person, the unit also verified that the above fanpage is fake, not the official page of Minawa Kenh Ga resort in Gia Vien (Ninh Binh). "Not only this resort, there are many other resorts in Ninh Binh province that have been impersonated to commit fraud. In the past, we have continuously issued warnings to the people. Ninh Binh Department of Tourism will coordinate with relevant agencies to continue handling these fake fanpages" , said the leader of Ninh Binh Department of Tourism.
In November 2024, Ninh Binh Provincial Police issued a warning about scammers setting up fake social networking sites of hotels, resorts, and homestays in the province in order to steal tourists' property...
Websites and fanpages are created with interfaces similar to those of reputable hotels, homestays, resorts, etc., using hotline numbers to contact and advise tourists and sending many beautiful pictures and comments from other customers to increase the level of prestige to create trust with tourists...
After gaining the trust of tourists, the subject will ask tourists to transfer a deposit in advance with the reason that the hotel or motel is overloaded, if they do not book in advance, they will not be able to keep a room. When tourists, due to lack of vigilance and lack of precaution, transfer a deposit to the subject or pay for the room or food to the subject, they will cut off contact with the tourists...
Source: https://vtcnews.vn/dat-phong-khach-san-tren-mang-mat-oan-tien-ty-nan-nhan-ke-lai-thu-doan-lua-dao-ar924186.html
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