Nghe An: Fraudsters impersonate electricity employees, many people lose money unjustly
Recently, in Nghe An province, there have been a number of fraud cases in which people impersonate electricity employees to appropriate people's property.
Sophisticated tricks
In February 2025, Ms. PTH, residing in Nghi Huong ward, Vinh city, reported to the authorities about being scammed and having her property stolen by impersonating an electricity employee.
According to the report, Ms. H. received a call from a strange phone number claiming to be an electricity employee, informing her family that her electricity bill was outstanding. This person urged Ms. H. to quickly pay the electricity bill through an application sent to her Zalo account, otherwise her electricity would be cut off.
Worried that the power outage would affect her work and family life, Ms. H. logged into the link sent by the subject. Immediately, Ms. H.'s bank account was deducted 692 million VND.
At that moment, Ms. H. was shocked to realize that she had been scammed, so she immediately went to the police to report the incident.
From the collected documents, the Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention Department of Nghe An instructed Ms. H. to operate on the phone to prevent the money from being transferred; at the same time, carry out the procedure of reporting directly to the bank to promptly freeze the above amount of money.
Thanks to the timely detection and early prevention by the authorities, the very next day, Ms. H. received back the nearly 692 million VND she had almost lost.
However, not everyone is as lucky as Ms. H. February 2025, Vinh City Electricity also received a report from a citizen in Hung Binh Ward about a person impersonating an electricity employee to collect electricity bills and threatening to cut off the electricity if the electricity bill was not paid on time. Because he was working in the auto service business, and was afraid that the power cut would affect his work, this household followed the instructions and had tens of millions of dong deducted from his account, which he could not get back.
“Because of business and not wanting to make a big deal out of it, this household only contacted the electricity company to report the incident, not reporting it to the authorities. Currently, Vinh City Electricity has more than 100,000 customers, so the risk of subjects choosing this area to carry out similar fraudulent acts will likely continue,” a representative of Vinh City Electricity added.
Not only in the city, this form of fraud has also appeared in rural areas. Mr. Ngo The Lu - Director of Anh Son District Electricity said: In early 2025, 1 household in Kim Nhan town and 1 household in Tam Dinh commune were scammed with the same trick, that is, a strange phone number called to inform that they were from the electricity company asking households to pay electricity bills and threatening to cut off electricity if they did not pay on time. After doing so, the households had 6.8 million VND and 2 million VND deducted from their accounts, respectively.
After receiving the report, Anh Son District Electricity investigated and confirmed the specific phone numbers as follows:0377345531, 0814997485… called local customers to cheat them out of money and other strange phone numbers that were not from Anh Son Electricity officials and employees. The unit immediately sent official letters to the district government and relevant agencies to widely inform people about this form of fraud.
The methods of these subjects are very sophisticated. First, they use many strange phone numbers to call customers to ask them to pay their electricity bills, report outstanding electricity bills, and threaten to cut off electricity. Even customers who have already paid, they still call and ask them to take a photo of the transaction on the Smart Banking software for verification. They also proactively make friends via Zalo, send a link to download the App with instructions on paying electricity bills using EVN's new application to trick customers into taking money from their accounts. When customers follow the instructions and enter the OTP code, all the money in their bank accounts will be immediately deducted. Especially for households in rural areas who are not familiar with technology, after hearing the threats, they are very scared and easily follow the instructions, leading to losing money in their accounts.
Mr. Ngo The Lu - Director of Anh Son Electricity
Raise awareness
Since the beginning of the year, the situation of fraudsters impersonating electricity industry employees has tended to increase nationwide with sophisticated tricks.
Ms. Phan Thi Thuy Hang in Truong Thi Ward, Vinh City said: At the end of February 2025, I received a call from a strange phone number, claiming to be an electricity employee, informing me that my family owed an electricity bill and asked for urgent payment to avoid power outage. However, having heard and read a lot of information about phone scams, I quickly recognized the suspicious signs and said that I would go to the electricity agency to pay the money directly, then saw them hang up.
"They spoke very convincingly, even giving out some of my personal information to gain my trust. Luckily, I was alert and knew this was a scam, so I immediately blocked that phone number and instructed my relatives not to follow it," Ms. Hang shared.
The district currently has 22,000 electricity customers, although the number of households is not too large, but the majority are ethnic minorities, with limited awareness, so the risk of being scammed by these tricks is very likely to occur. Therefore, immediately after the appearance of a new form of fraud related to our industry, we proactively sent a document to the district People's Committee and communes to widely propagate this issue. To date, there have been no recorded cases of being scammed by impersonating electricity employees.
Mr. Nguyen Minh Hong - Director of Ky Son Electricity
In order to prevent impersonation, fraud, and insulting electricity customers, affecting the reputation of the electricity industry, the Northern Power Corporation and Nghe An Power Company have also increased propaganda and asked electricity customers to raise their vigilance:Do not provide personal information; Do not access strange links and link customers' bank accounts to strange applications. In particular, customers absolutely do not pay electricity bills to personal accounts or bank accounts without verification.
People who receive calls and suspect impersonation of Electricity industry employees should notify the Customer Care Center at phone number: 19006769 for advice and support (Phone operators are available 24/7).
