Lost billions when booking hotels online: Resort has been impersonated many times

Regarding the case of a woman in Hai Phong who said she was tricked into transferring more than 1 billion VND when booking a hotel room on a Facebook fanpage with a blue tick, a representative of Minawa Kenh Ga resort said that the unit has received the information and is coordinating with authorities to warn tourists as well as handle fake fanpages.

Ms. Vu Thi Cam Hang, resort manager, said: "This is not the first time we have been impersonated by scammers. In November 2024, we also received feedback from guests about being scammed through fanpages bearing the name of our resort. We have coordinated with the authorities to warn people and take down these fake pages. However, the scammers are very sophisticated when they continuously create new pages and even use pages with blue ticks to scam."

According to Ms. Hang, from that time on, to ensure the safety of customers, this unit no longer accepts room reservations via social networks but only accepts rooms via the website, official hotline and electronic tourism platforms.

Giving advice, Ms. Cam Hang said that customers should not use social media channels to book rooms because this channel is highly risky. Before booking a room, customers should carefully research the websites, addresses, hotlines, and addresses of the companies where they intend to transfer money.

"No hotel or resort requires customers to transfer 100% of the service fee, but only requires a small deposit, and the full payment is required after using the service. Therefore, when customers see a unit requiring a money transfer, they need to consider carefully," said Ms. Hang.

Minawa Kenh Ga Manager also emphasized that if a customer transfers money to book a room and there is an error during the transaction, the hotel or resort must be the unit to handle this problem, not the customer. Therefore, asking the customer to continue transferring money or taking actions to fix the problem is unreasonable and incorrect.

Previously, informing VTC News , Ms. VTT (Hai Phong) said that on January 24, she researched and contacted the fanpage Minawa Kenh ga Resort & Spa Ninh Binh to book a hotel room.

After that, 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 there were many things to do near Tet, I asked about the 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.

Customer was scammed of more than 1 billion VND when contacting to book a hotel room on the blue tick fanpage. (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.

Regarding this 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.

Thanh Lam

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/mat-tien-ty-khi-dat-khach-san-tren-mang-khu-nghi-duong-da-bi-gia-mao-nhieu-lan-ar924323.html