Beware of online prize giveaway scams on social media.

(Baonghean) - Recently, many people have received messages on social media claiming they've won prizes worth hundreds of millions of VND. Following up on the information provided reveals that these are scams exploiting people's gullibility and greed to steal their accounts and defraud them of money.

One day at the end of March, Ms. Hoang Thi Ng, residing in Block 12, Ben Thuy Ward (Vinh City), received a text message with the following content: “Congratulations! Your Messenger account has been lucky enough to win the first prize in the Facebook customer appreciation program. The prize you received in the random draw from the system is a Liberty 150cc motorbike and a gift voucher worth 70 million VND.”

Having never participated in any contests, Ms. Ng, upon receiving notification of a "huge" prize, became curious and tried accessing the website tuanlocvang2015.vn as instructed. The website was very attractively designed, with the title "Messenger Customer Appreciation Event 2015. Congratulations! You were lucky in the random draw of the system; your account with prize code DH6979 won the First Prize." The website even displayed an image of a certificate stating that the "website meets intellectual property standards" and that the "system has undergone reputable, quality-effectiveness testing" issued by the "Central Association of Intellectual Property of Vietnam." The signatory was: Deputy Editor-in-Chief Hoang Luong (!?). The website owner even showed images of some customers who had won prizes and received gifts from the sponsor. Finally, these websites all required winners to provide personal information to process their prize claim.

The image was taken from the website: tuanlocvang2015.vn.

Suspicious, Ms. Ng reported the information to a reporter from Nghe An Newspaper. When the reporter tried accessing the website, they also received a prize code along with a notification stating they had won after filling in all the required information such as date of birth, ID card number, email address, phone number, bank account details, etc. Less than 2 seconds later, the reporter received a notification from the website administrator with the following content: "Congratulations! You are the winner of the First Prize: 1 LIBERTY 150CC IE motorbike worth VND 67,500,000 and 1 gift voucher worth VND 100,000,000 (including a 1-year free fuel card worth VND 5,000,000). The total prize value is VND 172.5 million."

However, this is only a temporary profile, so further procedures are needed to create the original profile to receive the prize. To receive the prize, the website owner requires a fee of 1.5 million VND for creating the original profile. The payment method is to purchase phone top-up cards, totaling 1,250,000 VND. Creating another account, the reporter still received a congratulatory confirmation with the same content as the previous Nguyen Tien Tung account. It seems that all the scams were pre-programmed. This serves as proof for Facebook users to be wary of such scams.

It's not just Ms. Ng.; many other Facebook users have received numerous messages and shares from their friends on their walls about winning prizes.

In early March, Ms. TTH from Hung Thinh commune (Hung Nguyen district) also received a message from a friend on her personal Facebook page about winning a prize. Ms. H showed us a sample message, which read as follows: "Congratulations! Your Facebook account has been lucky enough to win the 'First Prize' from the 'Golden Week Customer Appreciation' program in the second quarter. Your prize is a LYBERTY S150 motorbike and a 100 million VND gift voucher. Please visit the website Http://SuKienMangXaHoiVn.Com or click on http://goo.gl/oJGdFa to register to receive the prize. For any questions, please contact the hotline 00841684777729 Admin Thanh for support and advice." To gain the trust of the Facebook owner, the website also stated that this program was sponsored by PIAGGO motorbike company and Facebook Vietnam to promote the PIAGGO brand to consumers.

Believing she had won a valuable prize, Ms. H followed the instructions in the message and accessed the website to log in with her personal information. However, after registering with all her details, Ms. H was unable to access her Facebook account again. Subsequently, her friends in her Facebook contact list also received similar prize-winning messages, and they became new victims of this highly sophisticated scam.

In fact, the website Sukienmangxahoi.vn, after being accessed to register personal information and wait to receive prizes, displays countless images of motorbikes, stacks of cash, and other expensive household items that immediately catch the viewer's eye. The reporter attempted to access the website at the address mentioned above but was informed of a link error. Calls to the number listed on the website were also unsuccessful.

Responding to media inquiries, representatives from Piaggio and Facebook in Vietnam stated that these companies have absolutely no such sponsorship program, nor do any of Piaggio's partners conduct such a program. This means that the information related to the "Customer Appreciation Program for Facebook Users" is false and is merely a scam designed to steal accounts and defraud customers.

According to investigations, this scam first attempts to steal a user's Facebook account through common online phishing tricks. Once they gain access to the account, the perpetrators change the user's profile picture to the Facebook logo and simultaneously change the account name to "Facebook Security." In addition to impersonating an official Facebook account, the perpetrators also chat with everyone on the stolen account's friend list and post a malicious link.

Besides the two websites mentioned above, there are also sites like http://Traogiaimessenger2015.com, mangxahoi2015.com, hethongmessenger2015.com, giaifacebook.com... that are luring people into registering to receive prizes for the purpose of fraud. This highly sophisticated form of fraud is still ongoing. Not all victims of this type of scam want to report it to the authorities because they believe that if they lose their account, they can simply create a new one. However, many people are unaware that providing such personal information makes them vulnerable to exploitation by malicious individuals who can then use it to defraud even more victims. With the rapid development of information technology, personal information is increasingly susceptible to exploitation, dissemination, and misuse. Therefore, protecting personal information is crucial and is considered one of the fundamental human rights.

It can be affirmed that, with the police recently cracking down on several scams under the guise of "Viettel uncle," and telecommunications companies tightening control over spam messages, criminals will shift their scams to social media platforms – which are very lax in user identification. Above all, those using social media accounts should be vigilant and not be exploited by scammers for the sake of profit.

Text and photos:Nguyen Hung