Upgrading Locket, Gen Z was shocked when having to redeem the device for nearly 10 million VND

(Dan Tri) - Taking advantage of the Locket "trend" and the cheap mentality of young people, scammers have set traps to upgrade Locket Gold illegally for only 10,000 VND.

“Locket Offering” becomes a trend among Gen Z

Every morning when she wakes up, instead of surfing Facebook or TikTok, the first thing Quynh Hoa (20 years old, Hanoi ) does is touch the widget called Locket on the phone screen.

With just one touch, the young girl can immediately grasp what her friends are doing and where they are. Before every meal or outing, Quynh Hoa never forgets to "offer a Locket" - a quick photo capturing the moment to send to close people.

On average, Quynh Hoa posts about 10-15 photos a day on Locket about everyday moments (Photo: Character provided).

For many young people like Quynh Hoa, “worshiping Locket” has become a habit, even an indispensable part of the day. Not as neat as Instagram, not as noisy as Facebook, Locket provides a private space for them to keep and share the most ordinary slices of life with those who need it.

Ngoc Ha (19 years old, Hanoi) also chose Locket instead of other familiar social networks. She loves the privacy of this application, where each photo is only sent to a selected group of friends.

Ngoc Ha jokingly said that she chose Locket to live a virtual life because she is the type of person who "wants to be alone but is afraid of loneliness" (Photo: Minh Nhat).

“I often go to coffee shops alone, I like to take pictures of simple moments like a cup of cappuccino or an afternoon street corner. But I don’t want to post them in public. Locket allows me to share those little things privately, gently, without being judged or commented on by anyone,” Ha shared.

Not only Quynh Hoa, a large number of young people are using Locket every day. This application has penetrated every corner of Gen Z's life, creating a private space where the most ordinary moments, from meals, study corners to funny expressions, are shared without the heavy pressure of "living a virtual life" like major social networking platforms.

“I don’t like posting photos on social networks, so I use Locket to share and save my moments with my friends, from going to school, going to work, going out to meals,” said Thanh Diep (20 years old).

Thanh Diep also confided that when using the Locket app, he felt like his friends were always by his side. He added: “I like the feeling of going into the app to see how people are living, especially the friends I don’t see much anymore.”

The need to "live authentically" opens the door to fraud

First launched in 2022, Locket (full name Locket Widget) is a social networking app that allows users to take and post unedited, real-time photos. These photos will be displayed as widgets (miniature photo frames) and posted to the phone's home screen.

After a period of development, the application continued to launch an upgraded version called "Locket Gold" similar to CapCut Pro or Canva Pro with upgraded features such as no ads, allowing uploading photos from the library, writing longer content.

And as users began to express interest in upgrading Locket, scammers began to strike with increasingly sophisticated tactics.

It is the positive feedback from the user community that motivates Locket Gold to be born and maintained (Photo: Screenshot).

With this version, users will have to pay 49,000 VND/month or 399,000 VND/year to enjoy new features such as no ads, video recording, viewing people who have opened their Locket, unlimited number of friends compared to the regular version,... Especially, users can upload photos directly from the camera roll like other social networks.

Besides the controversy about this upgraded version losing the unique features of Locket, typically the ability to upload photos from the camera roll, it is undeniable that Locket Gold has attracted the attention of many users.

Gen Z is willing to spend nearly 400,000 VND/year just to "live authentically" on Locket (Photo: Screenshot).

Huyen Mai (21 years old), a regular Locket user, shared the reason for spending nearly 400,000 VND/year to upgrade to Locket Gold: “I use Locket every day to “flex” (show off) a little about my life with my close friends. At first, I was very happy because of its spontaneity, but after a while, I wanted to have a few more convenient features.”

Every moment, even the most "ordinary" ones, is posted by young people on Locket (Photo: Screenshot).

This young person gave an example of sometimes taking many "spiritual" moments with a normal camera but not being able to upload them to Locket, so she felt frustrated or always curious about who viewed the photos she sent, and sometimes annoyed with the ads on the platform. Those were the reasons that led Mai to the decision to upgrade to Locket Gold.

Blackmailed for 9 million VND after spending 30,000 VND to upgrade Locket

However, not everyone is willing to pay an amount like Mai to upgrade a social networking application to a more advanced version.

Therefore, many young people did not upgrade directly on the application but were attracted by the attractive offers of scammers such as: "Upgrade Locket Gold forever for only 10k", "Upgrade Locket Gold for life from only 10k", "Upgrade now - Pay later".

They have captured the "cheap" mentality and taken advantage of the Locket trend to launch massive advertisements, feedbacks, and self-scripted virtual interactions to deceive and build trust among many young people on all social networking sites.

And so, a series of users were "falling" into the traps that were set. This is also the time when the victims have to face being blackmailed to unlock the mobile phone they are using.

Phuong Anh, a second-year student at a university in Hanoi, is one of the victims of the Locket Gold upgrade scam.

“I often surf Facebook and TikTok and see ads for Locket Gold that are so cheap, only a few tens of thousands of VND can be used for a whole year, and there is no need to Jailbreak. The comments below are full of feedback praising the shop for its reputation and speed, so I believe it,” Phuong Anh sadly recounted.

Social networks have appeared with many posts inviting to buy Locket Gold at super cheap prices (Photo: Screenshot).

After contacting a TikTok page with attractive advertisements, Phuong Anh was advised to buy a 1-year Locket Gold package for 30,000 VND including warranty.

“They asked me to transfer money first, then instructed me to log out of my personal iCloud account from the device and log in with an iCloud account they provided, saying it was to activate Gold from the system. I was a bit hesitant, but seeing their firm commitment, and many people confirming it through feedback, I followed it,” Phuong Anh recounted.

The sweet advertisements of scammers upgrading to illegal Locket Gold (Photo: Screenshot).

Just a few minutes after logging into the strange iCloud account, Phuong Anh's iPhone was suddenly locked. The screen displayed the message: "This iPhone has been lost, please contact Zalo [the scammer's phone number] to unlock it, the unlocking fee is 9,000,000 VND".

“It was then that I realized I had been scammed. I had just lost money on the upgrade, and now I was facing the risk of losing my phone or having to pay a large ransom,” Phuong Anh recounted in a frustrated mood.

Fraudulent Locket Gold upgrade fanpage (Photo: Screenshot).

A systematic scam that exploits users' lack of knowledge

Phuong Anh’s story is not an isolated one. Mr. Nguyen Hoang Son, owner of a phone repair shop in Quang Ninh, said: “Every month, the shop records cases of people coming to unlock iCloud due to being tricked into upgrading applications, typically Locket, CapCut, DazzCam.”

According to the reporter's investigation, the Locket Gold upgrade scam was carried out methodically, systematically, and very sophisticatedly, targeting the cheap-loving mentality and lack of vigilance of many young people:

Step 1: Throw out an attractive “bait”

The subjects posted a series of advertisements for the Locket Gold upgrade service at super cheap prices, from only 10,000 VND or a few tens of thousands of VND for a "permanent" or "year-long" package on popular social networking platforms such as Facebook and TikTok. To increase their credibility, they did not hesitate to create fake comments and feedback, using fake accounts to seed praise for the "reputable" and "fast" service, creating a perfect cover to lure "prey".

Step 2: Enthusiastic consultation, building trust

When the victim contacts, the scammer will enthusiastically advise, provide many attractive offers and many subjects do not even require payment in advance with the promise of "successful upgrade then payment is required". This has made many people trust and fall into the trap.

Step 3: Strange iCloud login request

After establishing trust, the most important step is to ask the victim to sign out of the personal iCloud account they are using on the iPhone and sign in with a completely unfamiliar iCloud account provided by them, right in the Settings section of the device. The scammer explains this action with scenarios such as "to download the upgrade", "to activate the upgrade from the system".

Step 4: Lock the device and blackmail

As soon as the victim logs into a strange iCloud account, the scammer will quickly use the phone logged into this iCloud account and use the “Find My iPhone” feature to activate “Lost Mode”.

Lost Mode is a security feature of the Find My iPhone app, allowing you to remotely lock your phone and display a notification with a contact phone number (Photo: Getty).

At this point, the victim’s phone is immediately locked. The screen will display a threatening message such as: “This iPhone is lost, please contact [phone number/Zalo of the scammer] to unlock. Unlock fee: X million VND”. The ransom can range from a few million to tens of millions of VND, depending on the value of the device and the level of “willingness to pay” that they assess the victim.

Many users, especially young people with little experience or those who are not tech-savvy, due to a lack of understanding of the importance of iCloud accounts in the Apple ecosystem, have carelessly followed suit. They do not know that logging into a strange iCloud account in Settings means giving complete control of their device to someone else.

Although there have been warnings in advance and this form of fraud has appeared since 2024, some young people still fall into the iCloud lock "trap" of scammers (Photo: Screenshot).

According to technology experts, logging into an iCloud account of unknown origin is an extremely dangerous behavior, no different from "giving eggs to the devil", handing over your device to bad guys.

iCloud accounts not only store personal data but are also the key to remotely controlling iPhones, including locking the device, erasing data, or locating the user's location.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/cong-nghe/nang-cap-locket-gen-z-soc-khi-phai-chuoc-may-gan-10-trieu-dong-20250604105951075.htm