Summer activity scam warning

Sophisticated scams

Recently, the Ministry of Public Security has warned people about the crime of creating fake websites and Facebook pages of universities and training centers, advertising training courses, military and police summer camps/semesters... for children to approach interested parents and entice them to pay money to participate in order to appropriate property.

When parents click on the advertisement, they immediately receive automatic messages introducing the course along with a series of attractive invitations: "50% discount", "Free for the first 2 weeks", or "Special scholarship for the first 100 parents"; "Register early for a preferential price, if you wait until the summer break, the tuition will be double"... making parents easily trust and quickly register personal information - that is the first trap that opens a sophisticated scam scenario.

In Nghe An, according to information from the Criminal Police Department, recently, the authorities have also discovered a scam on the internet targeting parents who want their children to participate in competitions, summer courses, experiential activities, life skills training, and sports training. The subjects set up Fanpages such as "Military Summer", "Summer Retreat", "Chess Course", "Marathon Training Course", "Child Talent Competition"... to attract the attention of victims.

When signing up, parents are instructed to complete "missions" or participate in "surveys" with the promise of cash back and commissions.

Specifically, they will be invited to the Telegram group to participate in "the task of increasing interaction for the sponsoring brand". The group has a number of members, of which only the parents are real people, the rest are a team of "decoy" scammers pretending to be: homeroom teachers, secretaries, other parents... The "task" is to rate and like the brand, along with initial small deposits and withdrawals (for example: deposit 300 thousand, withdraw 310 thousand).

Once trust is established, the “mission” amount gradually increases, until it cannot be withdrawn and is required to deposit more to “unlock”. If the parent shows doubts, there will be “other parents” (actually scammers) who will send private messages, encouraging them to continue doing the mission.

When the victim can no longer borrow money, he comes to his senses, but by then the money is gone and cannot be recovered.

A typical case is that of a 38-year-old woman residing in Vinh City who came to report that she had been scammed. Specifically, Ms. T. (name has been changed) happened to see the Fanpage "Military Summer" with 3,300 followers promoting the Military Semester program, so she went to check it out. After that, this parent was instructed to register through the Fanpage and was provided with information about military semester courses and accompanying benefits by a person claiming to be a consultant.

Next, she was instructed to register for Telegram to receive information about the course. According to the information provided by the consultant, because Ms. T. registered to participate at the time of sponsorship, there was no cost. If she registered after May, the cost to participate in the military semester organized by this unit would be 3.2 million VND. However, according to the consultant, because there is a sponsoring brand, candidates participating in the Military Semester program must increase interaction for the brand by purchasing products to promote the brand, the purchase money will be refunded, in addition, there will be an additional 10% commission for each purchase.

Ms. T. was then placed in a Telegram group with 10 members, including 6 parents like her. According to the instructions, the group of parents had to perform 5 purchasing tasks to increase interaction for the sponsor. The parents were guided to a link to register a dedicated account of the system to make purchases. The first task, members bought an item worth 560,000 VND. After completing, about 3-5 minutes later, Ms. T received 616,000 VND in her account, including the principal and 10% commission.

In the second and third tasks, the value of the items increased, Ms. T received the same principal and commission as in the first task. In the fourth task, the consultant asked the members to make two consecutive orders, including one order consisting of two products worth 50 and 98 million VND and a "final order" of more than 285 million VND.

Members transfer money to buy each item in order, take photos with receipts, and send them one by one. Ms. T. deposited money to make 2 orders, but because she did not read the instructions carefully, she only transferred the photos and content of 1 order. After that, Ms. T was asked to start over, sending the correct photos and content to get a refund. If she does not complete the process within 10 minutes, the account will be frozen.

Fearing, Ms. T. had to borrow money to continue carrying out the "mission". At this time, in the group, 3 people reported that they had completed the task and had received their money and commission back. However, Ms. T. and another parent, due to performing the operations in the wrong order, were not considered to have completed the task and were asked to perform an additional task of purchasing an order of 317 million VND to "compensate", and when completed, they would be refunded the money for the 2 previous orders.

However, at this time, Ms. T. could not raise enough money to continue the task. She begged for her money back but to no avail. After that, the Telegram group was deleted, and the accounts of the two consultants could not be contacted. At this time, Ms. T. was shocked to learn that she had just lost a large sum of money (nearly 1 billion VND) to scammers.

Raise awareness

In fact, the trick of using social networks to commit fraud and appropriation of property in the form of introducing and advising parents to register their children to participate in courses, experiential activities and training is not a new trick. In 2024, Nghe An Police also issued Document No. 1622/CAT-PC02 on preventing cybercrime in the form of faking summer courses.

In particular, it is requested that the Nghe An Department of Education and Training inform 100% of educational institutions in the province about the methods and tricks of criminals; and request the Board of Principals of primary schools to propagate and disseminate the methods and tricks of criminals to parents and students to raise awareness and proactively prevent them.

Conduct a review and notify parents of reputable summer training and education institutions and units with clear addresses in each locality to learn about and register; limit parents and students from registering for courses at educational institutions on the internet without clear addresses to prevent fraud.

To prevent people from being scammed with similar tricks in the summer of 2025, the authorities recommend that parents who want their children to participate in summer courses, summer camps, military and police semester experience programs... need to research carefully before registering. In particular, be careful with financial transactions related to this activity, check carefully, and confirm clearly before doing it. It is best to go directly to the agency or organization to learn and register.

Because according to the investigators of the Criminal Police Department (Nghe An Police), currently, it is very difficult to identify which page on social networks is real and which is fake. Therefore, parents need to check the transparent information of the page to see if the AD is a foreigner or not. If so, the risk of fraud is high.

Because when we are looking for information about summer courses in Vietnam, the administrators of that page must be Vietnamese and managed in Vietnam. On the other hand, if you pay close attention, you can see that the fake Fanpage pages of the scammers will name them after the year, for example, in 2025, they will change the name from a Fanpage with many followers to the name of the program they want to fake + 2025. For example, Junior Military Semester 2025.

In addition, if the consultation process shows signs of being put into a Telegram group or asking to participate in a survey, asking to click on a strange link, it must be carefully considered. Because usually the Organizing Committee will post information publicly on official websites and newspapers, so it is necessary to check the information with different sources.

The Ministry of Public Security also recommends that people be vigilant, only register to participate and transfer money when they have clearly understood the information of the organizing unit. When detecting signs of fraud and property appropriation, they should quickly report to the nearest police station and report via the VneID application.