Another online scam in Nghe An has been thwarted.

On November 2nd, the leaders of Xuan Thanh Commune Police (Yen Thanh District) announced that their unit had assisted in preventing a series of online scams targeting citizens in the area.
Accordingly, on the afternoon of November 1st, Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Anh Tuan - Head of the Xuan Thanh Commune Police - received a phone call from a friend of Mr. NTV (33 years old, residing in Xuan Thanh Commune) regarding suspicions that Mr. V. was being scammed by malicious individuals through the "task-solving" scheme on social media.

Lieutenant Colonel Tuan then suggested that the man take Mr. V. to the commune police station to investigate the matter. However, upon arriving at the police station, Mr. V. still refused to believe he had been scammed, insisting that he would be rewarded with an iPhone 15 Pro Max upon completing the task. The commune police chief then spent nearly an hour analyzing and explaining the situation, but still couldn't convince the victim. Only when Lieutenant Colonel Tuan used Mr. V.'s Telegram account to join a group chat and expose the scammers' tactics did Mr. V. finally believe he had been deceived.

According to the 33-year-old man, on the afternoon of November 1st, an acquaintance transferred 150 million VND into his account to handle some business. Shortly after, a Zalo account messaged him, inviting him to join a Telegram group. In this chat group, he was invited to participate in placing orders on the Tiki e-commerce platform, free of charge, with a commission of up to 30%.

Following the "team leader's" instructions, Mr. V. deposited 8.9 million VND to purchase goods, after which he was refunded his principal and commission. Seeing how easy it was to make money, when the "team leader" suggested completing the second and third tasks, Mr. V. readily deposited 91 million VND. However, this time, Mr. V. did not receive his principal and commission back. Instead, the "team leader" suggested he continue with the fourth task.

According to the "team leader's" instructions, if Mr. V. deposited 100 million VND to place the order, he would receive a refund of his principal, commission, and the money earned from the two previous tasks, plus a reward: an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Since his account only had just over 50 million VND left, insufficient to "complete the task," Mr. V. called a relative to borrow money. Knowing Mr. V.'s purpose for borrowing, his relative immediately reported him to the police to intervene.

"Fraudulent activities disguised as task assignments on social media platforms are not new. We have publicized these scams extensively to raise awareness, but unfortunately, many people still don't pay attention, leading to them being scammed out of large sums of money," said Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Anh Tuan.

A few days ago, also in Nghe An province, the police in Thanh Lien commune (Thanh Chuong district) promptly prevented a similar incident. According to reports, on October 30th, Mr. T.D.T. (from Thanh Lien commune) received a call informing him that his phone number was not registered to him and would be blocked in both directions after two hours. They requested to add him on Zalo for instructions. After Mr. T. agreed, they then asked him to provide his citizen identification number and inquired about his savings.

After Mr. T. mentioned having three savings accounts totaling 290 million VND, they claimed that after checking his information, they found Mr. T. was linked to a bank account in Da Nang containing a large sum of money suspected of being related to drug trafficking... They then connected him to another individual, who claimed to be a prosecutor from the Da Nang City Procuracy and continued to threaten Mr. T., saying he would be arrested if he didn't comply. They demanded that Mr. T. withdraw 290 million VND from the bank and transfer the money to the account they provided, promising to return it to him if he was not involved in drug trafficking.

Mr. T. trusted them and quietly took three savings passbooks to the bank to withdraw money and transfer it to them. Fortunately, Mr. T.'s wife noticed her husband's unusual behavior and questioned him. Upon learning of the situation, Mrs. T. quickly reported it to the police to prevent the scam from continuing.