Following a request from her daughter's Viber account, the mother lost more than 1.3 billion VND.
Police said a woman was scammed out of more than VND1.3 billion after following her daughter's request to transfer money from her Viber account.
Previously, on March 28, Ms. T. (in Long Bien district, Hanoi) saw a missed call from her daughter's Viber account. When she called back via video call, the screen displayed her daughter's image but the call was quickly disconnected.
Afterwards, this account texted to explain that due to "weak signal" the call could not be maintained, and also said that they needed money to exchange foreign currency at an attractive discount rate.
Believing that it was her daughter, Ms. T. transferred money as instructed without checking again. Only when she discovered that all messages from her daughter's account had been deleted did she suspect that her daughter's account had been hacked and quickly reported it to the police.
From the above incident, Hanoi City Police warned people to be vigilant when receiving text messages or calls asking to borrow or lend money.
People need to calmly verify information, especially for urgent money transfer requests; verify identity, call directly via regular phone number or meet in person to verify.
At the same time, be careful with strange links, do not click on suspicious links, even if sent from acquaintances.
People should check their bank accounts, making sure the recipient name matches the person you intend to transfer money to.
Identify unusual signs in video calls: If the face lacks emotion, the sound and mouth movements are out of sync, or the eyes and movements are unnatural, it could be a sign of fake technology.
Fraudsters use Deepfake technology to fake images and voices of relatives.fraud and appropriation of property. This technology creates fake videos that look like real people, making many people lose their guard. Some victims have been scammed out of billions of dong.
Fraudsters often take advantage of technical errors such as blurry images, mismatched sounds or unnatural expressions and give reasons such as "busy with work" or "weak signal" to quickly end the call, leaving the victim unable to detect the scam.
When encountering cases with signs of fraud, people need to promptly report to the police to prevent and handle them according to the provisions of the law.
