Currently, fraud on social networking sites is becoming more and more sophisticated and complex in many different forms, typically including fraud from closed "health consulting" groups. This behavior not only causes people to lose property but more dangerously affects their health because of the risk of using fake drugs or drugs of unknown origin.
Ms. D.N.L in Ho Chi Minh City (55 years old) has had a long-term bone and joint disease, so she joined some closed health consultation groups to exchange and share experiences about her disease.
Recently, the group posted a number of posts advertising oriental medicine products, promising 100% effectiveness. Seeing the promotion, she bought them to use, but what she received was only a scam.
She shared: “I have had a painful joint disease for several years. I saw on Facebook that they advertised a medicine to treat aches and pains. I was curious and asked, the staff was very enthusiastic about the advertisement, and I saw that people who had used it also found it effective, so I transferred 1 million VND to them. A few days later, they sent me the medicine. I found the medicine a bit different, so I went to the clinic to ask the doctor, and the doctor advised that this medicine does not treat joint disease at all.”
Initially, the subjects invited the victims to join groups and then called to advise them on buying oriental medicine to treat their illnesses with attractive promotions, such as free medicine for 5 years and insurance reimbursement of 80% of the cost of the medicine used for treatment...
With a long-term illness that did not go away and attractive online invitations, these victims were scammed out of millions of dong. After receiving the money, the scammer immediately lost contact.
The trick these subjects often use is to share and exchange information and video clips that use images of doctors and medical staff to describe advice and instructions on how to use foods or describe the effects of foods as real-life experiences or witnesses who have suffered from the disease to increase persuasiveness.
MSc. Dr. Nguyen Truong Minh The (University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ho Chi Minh City) said: "There are people who lose money, take drugs that are not guaranteed in quality, affecting their health.
In many cases, when buying products, when looking closely at the ingredients, they are simply calcium or common products but very expensive, advertised with very miraculous functions or very unscientific treatment methods.
People without expertise will not be able to distinguish between what is beneficial and what is not. They think that the people who advise them are experts and have experience.
Listening to such advice and using bad products will cause the disease to become more serious, faster, and worse. At best, it will be a waste of money or a loss of health, at worst, it can be life-threatening.
In fact, for many different reasons, there are people who do not want to go to the hospital for treatment, so they go to these closed groups to learn more about their condition, but the result they get is just "losing money and getting sick".
