Digital transformation is opening up unprecedented opportunities for socio-economic development, while creating more space for women to participate in labor, study and entrepreneurship activities. However, along with opportunities, cyberspace also presents many new risks, from online job scams, cyber violence to the digital skills gap between men and women.
In that context, freelance women, women in rural areas or those taking care of their families - easily become vulnerable targets. The "Fill the Gender Equality Gap in the Digital Space" series records the current situation, analyzes the causes and proposes solutions to protect women, narrow the gender gap and build a safer and more inclusive digital ecosystem.
Collaborator plowing views" and the initial profit trap
Ms. Tran Thi Mai (born in 2000, residing in Lao Cai, character name has been changed) - a business owner in electronics and refrigeration - is still in shock when she became a victim of an online job scam on social networks.
Initially, Ms. Mai intended to remain silent because she was ashamed of being scammed out of money. However, fearing that many others could fall into a similar trap, she decided to share her story.
Around mid-March 2026, while surfing Facebook, Ms. Mai saw an account on social networks with many followers posting an article recruiting collaborators to "ploy views" for videos on YouTube. Believing that this was a real account, she texted to ask more about the job.
This person introduced this as a video promotion project, requiring many viewers and interaction on request. Each video viewed will receive a commission of about 30,000 - 40,000 VND; daily income can reach 200,000 - 300,000 VND. Participation conditions are quite simple: over 18 years old, provide full name, year of birth and bank account to receive salary.
After Ms. Mai sent personal information, the subject informed her that she was eligible to participate. The subjects then asked her to download the Telegram application on the grounds of "work security". Here, she was put into a chat group with many accounts continuously sharing images of receiving money to build trust.
At this social networking application, another account provides detailed instructions on how to do the "task". Accordingly, each day participants are assigned 4 tasks with different deposit amounts, profits from 20-80%. The work includes watching videos, taking screenshots to confirm and then depositing money into the system to receive both capital and commission.
Initially, Ms. Mai tried to deposit 100,000 VND and quickly received back 180,000 VND. Seeing that the interest came easily, she continued to perform a larger task. However, when depositing nearly 700,000 VND, she could not withdraw money. This group continuously asked her to deposit more to "complete the system task".
Believing her, she successively transferred many different amounts of money, totaling nearly 60 million VND. When she no longer had the ability to transfer more, the accounts in the group suddenly disappeared, the entire conversation was deleted and her contact was blocked.
Ms. Mai said that at that time she had just given birth to a young child, the family's economy mainly depended on her husband, so financial pressure was very high. To repay the money borrowed from relatives before, her family had to find many ways.
Regretting what she had done, she asked her mother to sell the gold as dowry to pay off debts when borrowing from relatives and friends to top up money. For her, this is an unprecedented expensive lesson when trusting online job search at home.
Just because of a few tens of thousands of initial interest, I lost a large amount of money. This is too expensive a lesson," she said with regret.
Risk of being scammed abroad
Not only scamming through online tasks on social networks, many subjects also use the trick of "light job, high salary" to get women to move to border areas, posing a risk of being scammed abroad.
On February 1, 2026, Duc Co Commune Police, Gia Lai province said that the unit received and supported a case at risk of being scammed to the border area.
Previously, Duc Co Commune Police received 1 citizen discovered by the people and security forces of Residential Group 3, Duc Co commune, and brought to the headquarters.
Through working, it was determined that the citizen's name was T.T. N (born in 1983), residing in Bac Ninh province. Ms. N presented: Through social networks, Ms. N met a man; this person introduced her to bring Ms. N to Cambodia to work with a high salary. Trusting her, Ms. N took a bus from Bac Ninh to Ia Dom commune, Gia Lai province.
When arriving at the Le Thanh Border Gate area (Gia Lai), Ms. N wandered near the border gate to wait. During this process, people around noticed that Ms. N had signs of unstable psychology, worried that she might be lured to Cambodia, so they came to inquire and took Ms. N to the Duc Co Commune Police headquarters for support.Duc Co Commune Police have explained and advised Ms. N not to believe in the "light job, high salary" invitations on social networks, this is very likely a trick of fraudsters aimed at appropriating property or trafficking people across borders.
After that, Duc Co Commune Police contacted Ms. N's relatives to come to the headquarters to pick her up. Ms. N's relatives thanked Duc Co Commune Police, people and the security force of Residential Group 3 for their timely and dedicated support, contributing to preventing unfortunate consequences that may occur.
Lured into Telegram to perform tasks, 99% are scammers
Network security expert Ngo Minh Hieu (co-founder of Cypeace and Chongluadao. vn) warned that when encountering messages to lure you into the social network Telegram to perform tasks, invest, watch pornographic images... then up to 99% is fraud.
The expert explained that with this application, subjects will easily manipulate users' psychology. A scammer can manage dozens of Telegram accounts. They often use other accounts to simultaneously chat, falsely praising users receiving money.
Not to mention, when scamming victims, they can delete all messages from both sides. When victims discover they have been scammed, it is too late, not knowing where to "ask for help". Because they are the ones who voluntarily transfer money to the subjects. Currently, fake bank accounts are bought by the subjects at very cheap prices from only a few hundred thousand VND.
Therefore, network security expert Ngo Minh Hieu recommends that users, especially women, freelancers in need of work, the elderly... need to be highly vigilant against sophisticated luring tricks on social networks, to avoid being exploited by bad actors.
