Warning about scams that hijack other people's Facebook accounts to solicit charity

On the evening of July 24, teacher Tran Vu Bao (74 years old, living in Vinh City), was shocked when he continuously received phone calls from many students and relatives about his charity post on his personal Facebook. Teacher Bao is a former teacher at a high school in Vinh City, on his personal Facebook he has many followers, especially generations of students.

“It was only when I received the phone call that I realized my Facebook account had been hacked, but because I was old and not very tech-savvy, I didn’t know what to do,” said Mr. Bao.

After taking over Mr. Bao’s Facebook account, the scammers posted a charity appeal. The post fabricated a case about Mr. Bao’s nephew in Nghi Thuy (Cua Lo town), “suffering from a giant pituitary brain tumor, unprecedented in Vietnam.” “The tumor invaded many parts of the brain, compressing the nerves, causing the nephew to be in constant pain with symptoms of headaches, eye pain…”, the post read. In reality, Mr. Bao did not have a nephew with that name.

In addition, this post also included pictures with the caption that the victim was in critical condition in the hospital, aiming to appeal to the sympathy of many people. At the end of the post is the account number to call for charity….

Because they trusted Mr. Bao, after only a few minutes, many people immediately transferred money to this account without calling the Facebook owner to verify. “Those who commented warning that I was being impersonated right under the post were immediately deleted. I had to call many friends and relatives to post warnings that my Facebook account had been hacked in the hope that people would know and not transfer money. Being impersonated like this greatly affects my reputation,” Mr. Bao said, adding that he has now asked someone to retrieve his Facebook account.

According to the reporter's investigation, this is a new scam on social networks. The scammers often target the elderly, prestigious people with many followers on Facebook. Poet Lang Hong Quang - former Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Nghe An province is also one of the victims of this trick.

Mr. Quang (80 years old) said that not long ago, his Facebook account was also hijacked and someone impersonated him to post a charity appeal. “They used my Facebook account and made up a story about a traffic accident, with very sad words and pictures. Below was the bank account number to trick people into sending money,” Mr. Quang said, adding that because they trusted him, many of his Facebook friends sent money to the scammers’ accounts.

“As far as I know, this sophisticated scam is very popular nowadays. Therefore, I call on everyone to be vigilant when reading articles calling for charity on social networks,” said Mr. Lang Hong Quang.

In a recent announcement on the campaign to prevent online fraud, the Department of Information Security - Ministry of Information and Communications said that there are three main groups of fraud in Vietnam's cyberspace, including: brand counterfeiting, account hijacking and combined forms.

Online fraud is carried out in many different scenarios and is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Of these, workers and office workers are the targets of 19 types of fraud, the elderly are the targets of 15 types; children are the targets of 3 types and students/youth are the targets of 13 types.

According to the Department of Information Security, in the first 6 months of the year, online fraud in Vietnam increased by 64.78% over the same period last year; increased by 37.82% compared to the last 6 months of 2022.

24 online scams include:

1. “Cheap travel combo” scam.

2. Deepfake, Deepvoice video call scam.

3. “SIM lock” scam because of unstandardized subscribers.

4. Forged successful money transfer receipt.

5. Pretend to be a teacher/medical staff and report that a relative is in emergency.

6. Child model recruitment scam.

7. Tricks of impersonating financial companies and banks.

8. Installing applications, advertising links for gambling, betting, black credit,...

9. Impersonating websites of agencies, businesses (social insurance, banks...).

10. SMS Brandname fraud, spreading fake messages.

11. Fraudulent investment in securities, virtual currency, multi-level marketing.

12. Online recruitment scam.

13. Stealing social media accounts, sending scam messages.

14. Impersonating the police, the prosecutor's office, or the court to make fraudulent phone calls.

15. Selling counterfeit goods on e-commerce platforms.

16. Stealing ID card information to borrow credit.

17. Fraudulent transfer of money to the wrong bank account.

18. Fraudulent service to get money back after being scammed.

19. Telegram OTP theft scam.

20. Scammers spread fake news about lost calls like FlashAI.

21. Facebook recovery service scam.

22. Romance fraud, financial investment enticement, sending parcels, winning prizes.

23. Spread phishing links, seed dirty ads on Facebook.

24. Fraud for lottery numbers.