People lose billions of dong after being scammed while looking for jobs online.

Due to her shopping needs, Ms. Thai Thi Tham (residing in Cao Lanh City, Dong Thap Province) placed two orders through the Facebook account of the person named "Si tuyển Vân Anh" and left her phone number for the shop owner to contact her.

A victim has come forward to report being scammed online.

Later, someone contacted her via Zalo and Facebook to finalize the order and requested a bank transfer. Because she had bought from the shop many times before, Ms. Thắm completely trusted them and transferred 600,000 VND twice.

After discovering that the Zalo account and the name of the recipient were different from previous times, Ms. Thắm realized she had been scammed. "The scammer used the same name and profile picture on Zalo as the legitimate shop, which confused me," Ms. Thắm said.

An unbelievable story unfolded when a woman in Lap Vo district reported being scammed out of 8.4 billion VND. According to the victim, in February 2022, while looking for work, she searched on Facebook and came across an account named "Tet Job 1," which offered attractive commissions for successfully completing purchase tasks.

After some time chatting, the perpetrator instructed the victim to install an app called CTGroup on her phone to deposit and withdraw money online when completing tasks to purchase orders on the e-commerce site Amazon. Initially, she participated by making deposits to complete tasks, and later she was able to withdraw both her principal and interest. Once she had taken the bait, the perpetrator requested her to deposit a larger amount of 5 million VND.

After making numerous money transfers to various bank accounts, the victim transferred a total of over 8.4 billion VND. When the victim was no longer able to deposit money to complete the task, the perpetrator disappeared without a trace and ceased all contact.

According to the victim, the reason they were drawn into the scheme was fear of losing the money they had deposited earlier, and secondly, they were influenced by the group of people they belonged to.

Since the beginning of the year, the Dong Thap Provincial Police have received 47 cases involving individuals using high-tech methods to defraud and misappropriate assets, with total losses exceeding 23 billion VND. According to the police, online fraud continues to be complex, employing sophisticated methods and tactics. The perpetrators exploit the online shopping and job-seeking needs of many women to set traps and then steal their assets.

Major Le Van Dien, Team Leader of the Cybercrime Prevention and Control Team, Department of Cybersecurity and High-Tech Crime Prevention, advises people to absolutely not heed advertisements offering high interest rates and attractive benefits to participate in tasks on apps of unknown origin or mobile applications.

"These are tricks and schemes devised by these individuals to commit fraud and seize assets. People should absolutely not borrow money through online applications and should be wary of unfamiliar phone numbers. Absolutely do not follow instructions or transfer money to anyone you don't know," said Major Le Van Dien.