'Pretty girls' add Facebook friends: Fraud trap

It's hard not to wonder when strange accounts make friends, but many people still "accept" (accept to be friends) because of the beautiful, attractive profile pictures and interesting posts that arouse curiosity.

'Pretty girls' make friends, lose money and get sick

Viet Hoang ( Hanoi ) has a normal Facebook account, but one day, many strange accounts sent him friend requests. Most of them had very catchy names and used profile pictures of beautiful girls, even somewhat revealing.

"Nonsense" stories are used by fake Facebook accounts to attract prey.

At first, Hoang said he suspected these accounts were "fake" but then he randomly checked some and saw that they had many friends, posts and interactions, so even though he didn't know who they were in real life, he still agreed to be friends.

Like Viet Hoang, many Facebook users in Vietnam said they occasionally receive friend requests or thoughtful messages from strange accounts using images of young, beautiful girls. "Suddenly in the evening, a stranger texted me asking if I was home yet. After responding, they chatted with me about some other information as if they knew each other in real life, although I didn't know who they were so I was very cautious when exchanging information," said Tuan Anh, an office worker in Dong Da (Hanoi).

Not only asking about strangers, many scammers also approach victims by pretending to have a mistake, then chat and make friends to create trust. Accordingly, these accounts start a conversation, greet briefly like "Hello", "Hi" or send emoticons.

After receiving a response from the prey, they will give probing information such as asking where they live, then pretend to have met at a specific local event (e.g. wedding, birthday party...).

When denied, they will apologize for the "mistake" and then change the topic to another one to prolong the story. When seeing "sexy" and pretty account owners asking and chatting, many victims lose their guard and fall into the sophisticated trap that will be set later.

A "fake" Facebook account is created to spam and provide illegal services.

Recently, in Da Nang , Chau Hoang Khang used a fake social media account as a beautiful girl in a group of "single women", talked about love with a man and then tricked him into transferring money.

At the police station, Khang confessed that in June he went to Cambodia to work for a company specializing in online fraud (name and address unknown). The company gave Khang 2 Facebook and Zalo accounts with the same name Nguyen Thi Kieu Trang to carry out the act.

In October 2023, Khang used the fake account Kieu Trang with a beautiful girl's profile picture to get to know Huy in a "single women" group on social networks. After a short time of intimacy, Kieu Trang confided in him that she was in love and enticed Huy to join her in investing in business. After receiving money from the victim through many bank accounts, Khang cut off contact. In November 2023, Khang was arrested.

People like Khang are not rare. Authorities have stepped in and continuously conducted investigations as well as arrested people who impersonate on Facebook to commit fraud.

Buy mercy

The most common point of these accounts is the use of "eye-catching" images, and the use of luxurious-sounding female names. The account owners often change their profile pictures, which can be of the same person and are mostly selfies or taken alone, rarely posting pictures with other people.

Their posts are always set to Public, but despite having a large number of friends, the interaction rate is extremely low - an unusual point for a real Facebook account. Most of the comments on these photos are from male accounts praising the beautiful characters in the photos, liking them, sometimes leaving offensive comments, but all of them have no response.

Some fake Facebook accounts created by Hieu to trick victims. (Photo: Provided by the police)

As in the case of Nguyen Van Hieu in Ha Tinh, who created many fake Facebooks, posted avatars of beautiful women, made friends and texted many men. When approached, Hieu said his family was facing financial difficulties and wanted to borrow money to support them. Believing in their "suffering", the two men transferred to Hieu more than 60 million VND and a phone worth more than 4 million VND. After receiving the money, Hieu cut off contact with the victims and did not return the money and property as promised. Hieu was arrested in July 2022 for his actions.

According to a technology expert, the above signs show that the above accounts are all "fake", created for a certain purpose such as "bot farming" (automatic accounts serving tools to increase interaction, followers, "drop" comments and insert spam links...) or forms of fraud (impersonating others, creating trust to cheat money or leading into online scam traps...).

" Using fake accounts on social networks is not a new form, but with the help of increasingly developed automatic tools, they can proactively find and send friend requests to strangers to reach more 'prey', expanding the scope and opportunities for attack, " the expert analyzed.

According to Mr. Vu Ngoc Son, Technology Director of National Cyber Security Joint Stock Company (NCS), using fake accounts to make friends is the first step in a series of actions that scammers will take. He explained: " Usually, the subject will find a way to make friends with the 'prey', after making friends, they will lead the victim into fraudulent scenarios such as inviting cooperation, investment with high interest rates, inviting to participate in easy jobs with high salaries, or even emotional fraud ."

The head of NCS's security department also agreed with the common method of this trick: the subjects use virtual accounts with avatars that represent beautiful, attractive girls or successful, wealthy businessmen... to easily gain the affection and trust of the victims.

How to recognize scams

The easiest way to identify is when social media accounts have beautiful, sexy profile pictures, no specific 'check-in' locations, and no friends to interact with. Accounts that do not have many mutual friends also need to be carefully researched before making friends and giving trust and confidence.

Users should also be wary of accounts of people they have never met or do not have clear information, posts on personal pages are general, not specific, recent activity time, no old posts...

" In addition to fake accounts, scammers can also create fake accounts by using the same name as the main account of a real individual or organization, then reuse their official data such as avatars, images, posts...

After impersonating someone, the subjects will chat with their friends and relatives to ask them to do this or that, in essence, ultimately to trick the victim into transferring money into the account of the scammers who have prepared it in advance ," said Mr. Vu Ngoc Son.

According to experts, to avoid fraud in cyberspace, users need to constantly raise their vigilance, not immediately believe when receiving messages or friend requests from others, and need to verify through independent channels such as calling or meeting in person in case they know the information of the person whose name is on the social network account.

The ultimate goal of scammers on social networks is to steal the victims’ assets. Therefore, in any case, when they have not met and created a close relationship, Facebook users especially do not easily transfer money to the subject.

Users should not transfer money or send OTP codes to strangers and should regularly update information about forms of fraud in cyberspace to identify and prevent fraud because currently, the tricks and scenarios of criminals are constantly changing and becoming more sophisticated.

Khanh Linh

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