Warning: 8 scams that new students can easily fall into when enrolling in school

With his experience, Mr. Vu Trong Nghia gave some warnings to students who are still confused and can easily become "easy prey" for scammers:

“At this time, universities are processing admission procedures for first-year students. They are the “delicious bait” for scammers to lure.

The common tricks are as follows:

1. Offer to buy watches and cameras on the street

While walking on the street, suddenly someone approaches you and offers to buy a watch, a camera... At first, you see that it's cheap and even beautiful. But after spending money to buy it, after a few days the watch stops working, the camera can't take pictures...

Or another situation like: Claiming to be an employee of a company specializing in instant coffee production, they came to introduce the product and ask for customers' opinions after trying it. Opening the coffee package given by the woman, the children saw inside a piece of paper with the words "Congratulations, you have won a digital camera worth 5 million VND".

The self-proclaimed "salesman" led the children to a truck parked 200 meters away and gave them a new camera, carefully wrapped in two layers of plastic bags.

The person claiming to be a sales person enticed: "You are the first lucky winner. If you want to get the phone now, give me 500,000 VND as "luck sharing" money with others. You can write down the address of your parents or someone in difficult circumstances in your hometown. We will transfer that amount of money to them."

Sometimes, when they become students, they also intend to buy a camera, so they do not hesitate to withdraw money and give it to the strange employee to take the camera home. When they get home, they buy batteries to put in the camera to take a test shot, but the camera does not turn on no matter how many times they turn it on. When they bring the camera to the repair shop, the repairman confirms that the camera is a "fake product".

Therefore, make it a point from the beginning not to participate and absolutely not to buy from street solicitations.

2. Pickpocketing on the bus:

When riding the bus, you need to be very careful and watch out for pickpockets. They often carry shirts, raincoats, plastic bags, dress politely, always look around to find prey, and always stick close to people, and always move on the bus to pickpocket.

To avoid this, you should not carry a backpack on your back or keep your phone or wallet in your pocket while on the bus. Or if you do, you should pay attention and be alert to your surroundings. It is best not to carry valuables.

3. Donate money to buy toothpicks, pens, support victims of Agent Orange, flood victims...

This is the most common mistake that first-year students make. Usually, in the first classes of the year, there will be a few uncles/aunts/brothers/sisters who will come to the lecture halls to convince students about this. Their way of working is very professional. For example, if it is to support victims of Agent Orange, they will have a paper with a red seal to confirm (100% fake seal). To gain more trust, they also bring a book with a clear cover of cases at ABC who are in the situation of XYZ...

If you believe it, you have been deceived! In case you do not believe it but the class monitor or treasurer does, stop it, otherwise the class fund will disappear. Because if it is a “real” center, they will never do that. If you need to raise funds, you must go through the school or the functional units.

Therefore, please limit donating/supporting/buying to support anything/anything without a letter of introduction from the school.

4. Giving money to beggars (especially fake monks, old women, children...):

This is a sensitive issue, you can give or not as you wish. However, please remember one thing: not 100% of beggars today are truly poor. More than 80% of the “beggars” today are scammers. They are actually healthy, can do other jobs, but they still go begging.

Begging is organized into groups, groups... and has a clear division of work areas. Now there are higher-level people who pretend to wear monk's robes to beg for alms. Any monk's robe that has the folds still on it is 99.99% a scam and should not be given as alms.

This is up to you, just remind you one thing before taking out your wallet, remember how hard your parents at home worked to save every penny to send you to school, or your younger sibling at home sometimes asked for money to buy new pens/new notebooks and got scolded by their mother: "Why ask? You just bought/the old notebook is still usable, save money to send to your older sibling to go to college".

5. Attractive part-time jobs:

When leaving school or during class, if you find a flyer with content similar to the following:

“Recruiting part-time students. Job description: Delivering promotional gifts for X days for XYZ company at ABC supermarket. Salary 150k/2-hour shift. Employees are given uniforms. Contact XXX center”.

Is there any such attractive job? Seeing the above news, 99% of you will lose money. The recent tutoring case at a facility near Cau Giay is an example.

Advice is if you want to find extra tutoring work, go through the school's youth union organization.

6. Chess problems and games:

Some students who are good at playing chess are also easily fooled in this matter. The price for each game can be 5,000 VND (usually called: 5k, 10k, 20k...). If they lose, they will definitely lose money, but if they win, they will easily encounter the words: "Are you here to ruin me? Go away so we can have a piece of land to do business".

Therefore, absolutely do not get lost in chess boards, dice shaking places, gambling... on the sidewalk.

7. "Broker and robber" (Basically, those who lead to an unsatisfactory boarding house but still have to pay a fee, usually the motorbike taxi drivers)

The school year is also the business season for the "brokers" of boarding houses. Posing as someone looking for a place to rent for my sister who is about to start school, I was "advised" by a motorbike taxi driver named Manh, who parked in front of the school gate, about some addresses of boarding houses.

This person enthusiastically introduced: "My cousin in alley N has a room rented by a newly graduated student who just paid it off and is currently unoccupied. The room is spacious and clean. I'll take you to see it, if you don't like it, then forget it."

Winding through a few small alleys, the motorbike taxi driver will take you to a house in the alley. The "clean and beautiful" room as he introduced is actually less than 9 square meters wide, the tiled roof and walls are cracked, full of holes, the walls are covered with green-gray mold stains.

Seeing the girls refuse, the motorbike taxi driver immediately turned around and demanded 100,000 VND for the motorbike taxi and "renting consultation fee", "if you don't pay, you'll die with me" as he threatened. So the girls had to give 100,000 VND.

So you have to check carefully if they are the owner and ask clearly if there is a fee. But no matter what, if a motorbike taxi takes you there, there is no need because you will have to pay the fee anyway.

8. Multi-level marketing:

These forms are like each member when participating must pay a fee or buy a set of products to use, then you invite others to join, you get that person's commission. Like the old person eats the new person's commission. Most of these forms, you must first sell to acquaintances and then strangers. But these forms often destroy beautiful friendships because in fact, it is mutual exploitation.

Therefore, new students should first focus on admission and study in the first year. If you want to work part-time, you should go through the job introduction of the Youth Union or the school's functional unit.

These are some warnings for students who are still confused and are "easy prey" for scammers. A few carelessness and lack of vigilance will ruin the joy of the first days of school. Please try to be careful!

Thanh Hung