"Hunting" for bank accounts with the same name to commit fraud

Ms. Nguyen Thu Phuong (living in Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City) said that she received a message on Facebook from her close friend named M. asking to borrow 30 million VND to pay bank interest. She trusted and made the money transfer because she saw that the bank account provided matched the real name of her close friend, NCM. However, when she saw Mr. M. rushing to pressure her, she temporarily stopped the transaction, called to confirm and discovered that the person who texted to borrow money was a fake.

Easy to buy bank account

"Some of Mr. M's friends were scammed, but luckily it was only 1-2 million VND. If I wasn't careful, I would have lost 30 million VND without realizing the bad guy's tricks," said Ms. Phuong.

Recently, Mr. Nguyen Quang Huy, a bank employee in Ho Chi Minh City, also said that he was scammed out of 5 million VND with a similar trick. It was not until his friend reported on Zalo that his account had been "hacked" that Mr. Huy realized he had fallen into the trap. "I saw the correct bank account name to transfer money. At that time, the scammer also intentionally made a video call so that I could see his face and then hung up, so I did not suspect anything at all," Mr. Huy said.

According to the reporter's records, just entering the keyword "buy bank account" on Facebook social network, a series of groups and associations for buying and selling bank accounts appear. Notable among them is the group "Buy and sell bank accounts ATM cards - Counter banks - Virtual banks" with more than 100,000 members. Many posts about buying bank accounts in this group attracted hundreds of comments just after being posted for 1 hour, mainly requests for inbox (message) for price quotes.

Talking to a Facebook account named Hoang Hieu, we learned that customers only need to spend 2.5 million VND to be able to buy a CCCD, phone SIM, online bank account, even a physical card of any bank with the desired account holder's name. "Before paying, customers can check. We guarantee our reputation" - Hoang Hieu account affirmed.

Fraud on social media platforms is becoming increasingly sophisticated, requiring management agencies to take stronger measures. Photo: LE TINH

A representative of a state-owned commercial bank said that some banks have implemented the feature of creating nicknames for customer accounts, which can be exploited by criminals to commit fraud. "Although nicknames are unique and not duplicated, criminals can use this feature to match the name of the impersonated customer, then defraud the victim's relatives and family to steal money," said the representative of this bank.

An information technology officer at a joint stock commercial bank also pointed out that after obtaining a fake bank account, the scammers would proactively go to social networking platforms such as Zalo and Facebook to find accounts with similar names. After "hacking" the social networking account, they would contact the victims' frequent contacts in their friend list to request money transfers.

Is biometric authentication effective?

According to a representative of Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank ( TPBank ), the above tricks will be prevented or minimized after banks implement the State Bank's regulations requiring biometric authentication (face) for money transfers over VND10 million or total transaction value over VND20 million per day. "With biometric authentication at the time of money transfer, criminals will not be able to take advantage of it to commit fraud. This is an important step forward in efforts to prevent fraud and protect customers' assets," said a representative of TPBank.

At the workshop "Improving security and safety of cashless transactions" organized by the Payment Department, the Communications Department - State Bank and Tuoi Tre Newspaper in coordination with other units on the afternoon of June 14, Mr. Tu Tien Phat, General Director of Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank ( ACB ), said that requiring facial authentication in money transfer transactions of over VND 10 million/time or over VND 20 million/day is necessary to prevent criminals from stealing money in accounts. ACB has deployed a facial authentication system and received positive feedback from customers. "After 3 days of application, 30,000 customers have performed facial authentication with a process that takes less than 30 seconds" - Mr. Phat informed.

According to an expert in the field of financial and banking assessment, the form of electronic identification (eKYC) still has loopholes that can be exploited by criminals. The trick of criminals is to use information on someone's CCCD and attach it to their face to open an account. Some banks now only require users to authenticate their faces by turning left, turning right, looking up and down, so it is completely possible to use artificial intelligence (AI) to authenticate instead.

"To prevent that loophole, banks need to require customers to create additional smiling, angry or crying faces... to show the state of a real person. In addition, there needs to be a link with the country's population data, including facial data, so that when a fraud case arises, the authorities can track down and identify the subject," this expert suggested.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Nguyen, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Cyber ​​Emergency Response Center (VNCERT), also said that the banking system needs to be linked with national population data to be able to detect and prevent the counterfeiting of bank accounts, especially in the context of increasingly developing technology. "Users need to report to management agencies about groups and associations that buy and sell bank accounts or show signs of aiding fraud on social networks so that management agencies can request social networking platforms to take action. At the same time, it is necessary to be especially careful when someone asks to borrow money, it is best to contact and verify via phone number or meet in person" - Mr. Nguyen advised.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/san-tai-khoan-ngan-hang-trung-ten-de-lua-dao-196240615201457199.htm