This Tet has no banh chung
As a person who loves decorating houses, shopping, and arranging, while browsing gift basket sets to get ideas to make gifts for relatives and friends during Tet, Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Nhi (name changed, residing in Ho Chi Minh City) came up with the idea of trying to make gift baskets for sale. Thinking is doing, she spent 25 million VND to buy materials, intending to make a few samples first, and if there are applications, she will import more later.
Because she didn't have much time and wanted to find a place to sell full decorations for convenience, she searched on TikTok, Facebook. While browsing groups, she saw a page named "PK Linh", with quite eye-catching images and posts, so she texted to ask to buy.
Scrolling through the entire page but not seeing the contact phone number, she still made friends to text and exchange - something she later admitted to being the first mistake. When asking for an address to come and buy directly, she received an unclear address in Phu Giao (Binh Duong), about 70km away. Afraid of going far, she decided to order online even though the address was not specific.
She chose each item, some items were still available, some items were sold out and still thought simply that this was just a normal seller. It is worth mentioning that the price was not cheap at all, even some items were higher than other places, so it cannot be said that she was deceived because she was greedy for cheap prices. After finalizing the first order, carefully checking each item and the price, she transferred 24 million VND. The seller continued to say that she was short of money for two items and she transferred an additional 620,000 VND. In total, the amount reached nearly 25 million VND.
The incident happened on January 19. For more than 10 days, she was still sad, ashamed and had no intention of sharing. Only when she accidentally saw many sales pages showing similar signs did she decide to post a warning so that no one would be as foolish as her again. She confided: "Swindling is very common and sophisticated nowadays. Everyone needs to be very careful, before transferring money, even if it's just a small deposit, you should call to confirm, the direct address is clear. For me, to compensate for this amount of 25 million VND, I probably have to sell from 250-350 gift baskets, so this year it is likely that Tet will not have banh chung.
Ministry of Public Security warns
The Ministry of Public Security said that in the days leading up to the Lunar New Year, when everywhere is busy preparing for shopping, returning to their hometowns for reunion, and worrying about year-end spending, it is also the time when fraudsters accelerate their activities. Taking advantage of their busy psychology, wanting to "finish work in time for Tet", many people easily lose vigilance, creating conditions for thieves to commit acts of property appropriation.
Reality shows that the period near Tet is the "peak season" of scams. Subjects often hit the psychology of year-end anxiety such as: Fear of being fined, fear of affecting work, fear of late bonuses, late trips home... to urge victims to transfer money immediately in a very short time.
One of the tricks emphasized by the Ministry of Public Security is that online Tet shopping scams are increasingly complicated. Many fake fan pages and websites advertise Tet gift baskets, regional specialties, "hand-carried" cakes and jams, cheaper than the market price, and fast delivery before Tet. When buyers transfer deposits or pay in advance, the subject immediately blocks contact, or sends poor quality goods, fake goods and then disappears.
Many subjects impersonate brands and businesses to offer gratitude programs, gifts, and promotions during Tet, organize contests or announce that customers have won high-value prizes, then the subjects ask victims to transfer money to the account designated by the subject to carry out procedures to receive the prize. But after receiving the money, the subjects cut off all contact with the victims and appropriated the money.
To welcome Tet safely, the Ministry of Public Security requests each citizen to remember: Do not transfer money for any reason just via phone, text message, especially when being urged to "rush", "handle immediately"; do not provide OTP codes, passwords, personal information, even if the contact person claims to be a functional agency; always call to verify directly with relatives and friends when requesting to borrow money; shop for Tet at reputable addresses, do not be greedy for cheap prices, do not transfer money to unclear personal accounts and when detecting signs of fraud, quickly report to the Police agency for timely handling.
