Beware of the 'do the task - get the commission' trap

The Great Scam

Nghe An Provincial Police have just received a report from Mr. TVC (residing in Nghia Dan District) about being scammed out of more than 7 billion VND through "doing duty - receiving commission" online. According to Mr. C., a few days ago he received an invitation to join as a collaborator for ae-commerce platformto receive “commission”. He was put in a chat group with 3 people. One of them said he had been working for 2 weeks, and another named Huong had just started working.

According to the team leader's instructions, Mr. C's first task was to purchase 1 order worth 50,000 VND and 1 order worth 450,000 VND. After completing the purchase of 2 orders worth 500,000 VND, about 10 minutes later, Mr. C received 650,000 VND in his bank account ("commission" of 150,000 VND).

The trap of recruiting collaborators exploded after the Covid-19 pandemic appeared. Screenshot

After completing the first task, Mr. C's group was instructed to perform the second task. In this task, the amount to be transferred for the specified item was 1,100,000 VND, the second order was 5,999,000 VND. The time to complete the task was 10 minutes, completing 2 orders would receive both the principal and the "commission" money. However, 1 of the 3 people was slow, so the whole group had to make up for the order worth 25,999,000 VND. Because Mr. C and the person named Huong could not complete it, they asked to reserve it, so the remaining person completed it on schedule and was paid the entire principal and "commission".

“Because I asked for a reservation, the instructor said that Huong and I needed to do one more task to be paid the salary and principal. After completing the order of 79,999,000 VND, I was not paid the amount as instructed. When I asked, I was told that it was because I had not become a VIP collaborator. They told me that I had to upgrade to VIP to be refunded the 199,999,000 VND," Mr. C. recounted.

Mr. C. was sent a commitment stating that the entire amount would be returned when he and his groupmate named Huong completed the task. “Because the task was difficult, they gave us 2 more hours to complete it. At around 5:00 p.m. on October 15, Huong completed the task. Seeing that the other two people had both withdrawn the principal and the “commission,” I also tried to get the money back,” Mr. C. explained.

This time, like the last time, Mr. C. did not see the money transferred to his account. The instructor informed him that Mr. C.'s order was leaked and needed to be verified again. To confirm that the shipment was indeed closed, Mr. C. had to deposit the exact amount of money he would receive upon completing the task, as instructed. If he could not collect such a large amount of money in a short time, the instructor would inform Mr. C. that he would be supported. That evening, Mr. C. received a phone call from the instructor. This person informed him that he had just received 300 million VND and asked Mr. C. to help speed up the verification of the shipment.

Accordingly, Mr. C. had to transfer 70 million VND to the designated account. The instructor would pay the remaining amount. Mr. C. transferred 70 million VND and received a notification to wait for the system to return the money and "commission" within 7-10 minutes. While anxiously waiting to receive the large amount of money, Mr. C. saw that all the chat messages had been deleted and he was kicked out of the group. He reported to the management team, and Mr. C. continued to receive a response that he would check and verify again.

At 10:00 a.m. on October 16, Mr. C. received a report from the manager that "the other person" had taken his money and fled, and the system had not received the amount of 199,999,000 VND. Because Mr. C. had not completed the task, he could not receive the amount of 383,300,000 VND, including the principal and the "commission". Mr. C. was promised that the company would rescue him and agreed to disburse the above amount on the condition that he had to transfer the exact amount to the designated account. If he did not pay, the company would freeze Mr. C.'s account, meaning he would lose all the money he had deposited. Wanting to recover the amount he had deposited, Mr. C. agreed to transfer the money and continued to enter the matrix of "instructions for closing the order - transferring money - having problems with the order - continuing to transfer money to recover". The more he did, the more Mr. C. panicked and lost control.

Not only did he withdraw all of his savings of 1 billion VND from his time working abroad, this man also borrowed from his friends and relatives, and took out a quick loan of 6 billion VND to close the deal. By the time he woke up, Mr. C. had lost more than 7 billion VND. At that time, the guide, group manager, and the people who closed the deal with the group had all disappeared without a trace.

Many people fall into the trap

After sharing Mr. C.’s story on Facebook, the Criminal Police Department (Nghe An Province Police) said that the unit received many messages from people reporting that they or their relatives were scammed with similar tricks. The amount of money lost ranges from hundreds of millions to several billion VND.

A fake Shopee post to scam. Screenshot

According to the reporter's investigation, this scam has been popular for several years now, since the Covid-19 pandemic appeared, the demand for online job searching increased. Grasping that trend, bad guys have set traps on social networks. The main trick that the subjects often use is to impersonate employees of e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiki ..., posting advertising information on the internet and social networks to invite and entice users to participate with attractive incentives.

After agreeing to become a collaborator, the subject gradually leads, invites, and baits to build trust, exploits the greedy psychology, and makes the victim lose their sense of caution and vigilance. Notably, the "bait" that the subjects offer is often very attractive, such as: With each order, they will receive a difference of 10-20%... money will be transferred back after 5-10 minutes of successful order (including principal and commission); to create trust, the subjects will provide a link on the Shopee, Lazada, Tiki... systems of a product worth about 1-2 million VND and a personal bank account provided by the subject for the victim to transfer the amount corresponding to the value on the system. Immediately after that, the subjectsCheatwill transfer the money back to the victim as agreed.

When the victim "takes the bait" and transfers an amount of money up to tens of millions, the scammers do not transfer the money back and give many different reasons such as: The task is completed with 95/100 credit points, need to continue transferring money to complete 100 points and many people continue to transfer money and are scammed with large amounts of money. Tracing, identifying and handling this case often encounters many difficulties and complications.

To avoid being scammed, Nghe An Provincial Police advise people to be alert when reading job postings on social networks. Do not install applications of unknown origin, access strange websites, or unclear domain names. Most of these applications and websites have very bad interfaces and many spelling errors. Be responsible for your own money, think carefully before transferring money to someone. Inform relatives and friends to avoid...

Tien Hung