Impersonating delivery drivers: A sophisticated scam behind phone calls.

Việt Nam•22/07/2024

Online shopping leads to many other habits, such as asking the shipper to hold the goods or drop them off at home; then the shipper will send a message with the bank transfer information; as soon as the buyer receives the shipper's message, they transfer the money.

Taking advantage of this habit, these individuals have impersonated delivery drivers to swindle money from many people.

Deceiving her husband.

Around 10 AM on July 5, 2024, Kim Oanh (21 years old, Da Nang ) was scammed out of nearly 8 million VND. The "shipper" sent her bank transfer information, then called to urge her: "Transfer the order quickly so I can go deliver another order." Following her usual habit, Kim Oanh transferred the money immediately without checking the order details.

The images capture the process by which the perpetrator impersonated "Fast Delivery" to scam Kim Oanh.

Two minutes later, Kim Oanh received another call from the "shipper" saying, "I'm sorry, I sent the money to the wrong company account. Sending money there means you've successfully registered as a member, and 3.5 million VND will be deducted each month. If you don't have the money, you'll be classified as having bad debt."

Later, Kim Oanh received a fake link from the "shipper" claiming it was for "Giao Hang Nhanh's Customer Service".

Panicked and anxious, Kim Oanh quickly clicked on the link. Immediately afterward, a department called "Fast Delivery" called, instructing Kim Oanh to cancel her membership by converting her personal account to a business account. The method was to log into the bank's app, enter the verification code XXXXX in the transfer amount field, hold down the transfer button for 3 seconds, and then press transfer.

In fact, this action was equivalent to a normal money transfer. Kim Oanh was skeptical, but she still pressed and held the transfer button. The result was that the money wasn't transferred to a business account, and she lost it. The shipper even called out to her, shouting, "Didn't you follow my instructions?"

Feeling devastated, about 15 minutes later, someone claiming to be the head of the express delivery department called Kim Oanh, promising to help her get her money back. The other end of the line was noisy, as if the person was in an office; there were voices scolding, "This delivery guy is completely incompetent." As a result, Kim Oanh lost even more money. At this point, Kim Oanh realized she had been scammed.

In another case, at approximately 4 PM on July 8, 2024, NY (21 years old, from Dong Nai , a student in Ho Chi Minh City) was also scammed out of 3.6 million VND by someone posing as a shipper from the delivery company Giao Hang Tiet Kiem (GHTK).

In July 2024, TU (17 years old, Quang Ninh ) and LD (30 years old, Ho Chi Minh City) also encountered similar scams, but luckily they managed to stop in time when the perpetrator asked them to press and hold a verification code. The scam was exactly the same as the one that trapped Kim Oanh.

Many people have shared their experiences of being scammed by this method on Facebook groups named GHTK and the Threads online community.

The perfect psychological manipulation scenario.

When recounting their experiences of being scammed, all four victims expressed feelings of helplessness, anger, and injustice. Kim Oanh confided: “That whole morning, I felt like I was hypnotized. My emotions were completely dependent on their words and actions. From hastily transferring money when pressured, to worrying and being afraid when I heard I was about to be classified as a bad debtor, to panicking because I lost millions of dong due to a system error.”

What upset me most was that when I was on the verge of collapse, the call from the person claiming to be the department head was like a ray of hope. He criticized the staff's work methods and sympathized with the difficult life of a student. Driven by the desire to get my money back, I completely followed his advice.”

"As someone who works in media, I've read about many online scams, but I don't understand why I was still so careless at the time," LD recounted.

According to psychologist Duong Thi Thu Ha, Deputy Director of the Institute of Life Psychology, this is a tactic of creating scenarios to manipulate people's psychology. Most manipulators understand the psychology and weaknesses of their victims. In this case, the purpose of these calls is primarily to exploit fundamental human fears: fear of losing money, fear of legal consequences, fear of being stigmatized, fear of debt, fear of losing reputation...

According to Ms. Duong Thi Thu Ha, when encountering suspicious situations like the one described above, to handle them effectively and safely, the victim needs to calmly take deep breaths, change their body state to regain composure, and not let themselves be swayed by threats. After recovering from panic, they can go online to read more information. Currently, there are too many cases of manipulation and significant financial losses; think about the news online and be suspicious; share and ask family and friends for their support in resolving this issue, and absolutely do not hide it and try to handle it alone.

Take strong action against data security breaches.

Recently, the Ministry of Public Security has uncovered hundreds of individuals and organizations involved in the sale of personal data. Several large-scale networks involved in the theft and sale of personal data in Vietnam have been investigated and prosecuted.

The largest amount of personal data ever discovered to have been illegally collected and traded reached nearly 1,300 GB, containing billions of personal data records, much of which was internal and sensitive.

On April 17, 2023, the Government issued Decree No. 13/2023 on the protection of personal data. Violations of regulations on the protection of personal data may be subject to disciplinary action, administrative penalties, or criminal prosecution, depending on the severity of the violation.

Scamming schemes are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

The scams are elaborately designed, but the reason many people lose their vigilance and fall into the trap stems from the perpetrators' unexpected understanding of each person's information and shopping habits. This raises questions about the problem of user personal information leaks.

This is a source of frustration for many, including ECCouncil's security training expert, Mr. Pham Dinh Thang. Mr. Thang expressed: “For me, the leakage of personal information is a very upsetting issue. User information is not being protected completely, from basic information like name, phone number, date of birth… to information about everyday events in people's lives such as banking transactions, purchases…”

There were transactions that had just taken place, and immediately afterward, someone called, revealing very accurate information, leading many to believe they were the same person. I'm very concerned about where this came from and how the leak occurred."

According to Mr. Thang, the current situation regarding the buying and selling of personal data online is very complex and widespread. One of the main reasons is the leakage of customer information from these platforms.

"We hope that the authorities will soon find a clear and comprehensive solution, from the reception and processing stages to bringing these fraudsters to justice and severely punishing them," emphasized Master Pham Dinh Thang.

Some common scams

Some common scam tactics used by criminals include:

- Impersonating law enforcement agencies, leaders, bank employees, or telecommunications officials;

- Impersonating financial companies or social insurance agencies;

- Making threatening phone calls;

- Obtain citizen identification card information;

- Scams involving fake lottery results or providing lottery numbers to bet on;

- Hack Facebook;

- Completing tasks through an unfamiliar app;

- Buying and selling goods online;

- Transferring money by mistake to force a loan;

- Looking for someone to do housework, recruiting freelance workers;

- Establish a virtual trading platform;

- Scamming people into upgrading to 4G SIM cards;

- Transfer money to charity...

Fraudulent schemes and methods will become more diverse and unpredictable. In the future, the use of technology in transactions will become even more widespread; from buying and selling, exchanging information to carrying out administrative procedures. Meanwhile, online channels are particularly vulnerable to information forgery and individual or systematic fraud attacks.

To ensure the safety of personal data, everyone needs to proactively prevent fraud by acquiring knowledge, understanding fraudulent situations, and avoiding working with unreliable sources of information.

From the perspective of the authorities, coordination is needed to raise awareness and disseminate knowledge about information security to the public; at the same time, strict action should be taken against cases that violate regulations on data security.

plo.vn

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