Loss of billions due to believing in the green ticket fanpage Having a need to relax at a resort in Ninh Binh in early February 2025, Ms. Nguyen Tu (character's name has been changed) booked a room through a fanpage with a green ticket on Facebook.
After contacting her through the fanpage, the consultant repeatedly urged her to transfer the deposit because of high demand, and the room sold out very quickly.
Mrs. Tu then transferred a deposit of 6.5 million VND. After she transferred the first deposit, the scammer informed the customer that the transfer was incorrect and asked her to transfer the money back for the accounting department to confirm. Ms. Tu was asked to copy the code issued by the resort into the transfer content to get a refund of the initial deposit.
The fraudulent party codes provided are the numbers 9.5 million VND; 125.6 million VND; 379.6 million VND and 485.6 million VND. The total amount of deposits and transactions under the above codes is more than 1 billion VND.
"I have security key to the necessary code to get the money back, so I will continue to transfer it" - Ms. Tu said.
The accounts receiving the money belong to a company, so Ms. Tu still thinks she is being supported by staff.When she could not contact the resort, Mrs. Tu was shocked to realize that she had been scammed.Immediately, she went to the Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention Department, Hai Phong City Police to report the incident.
According to the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications), the beginning of the year is the time when people's demand for spring travel increases. However, this is also an opportunity for scammers to scam tourism, sell air tickets, train tickets and hotel rooms.
In fact, many groups of scammers choose to create fake fanpages and then do tricks to get green scores from Facebook. Scammers will run fake fanpage advertisements to create prestige, even buy fake comments about booking rooms or praise homestays and hotels to gain the trust of tourists.
"Lay it slow down" Talking to Lao Dong, Mr. Dang Huu Tri - a service specializing in Facebook account-related services said that Facebook blue book is a sign that the account has been verified, helping to increase prestige, interaction and protect the account from being forged.
In 2023, Meta ( Facebook's parent company, Instagram) launched a green semiconductor service called Meta Verified. Meta Verified business registration will include verified business authentication with badges, anti-counterfeiting protection, access to account support and features that help your business stand out.
However, currently in Vietnam, only a few businesses and content creators are being tested. Therefore, scammers often use foreign fanpages with available blue pages and change their names or use Facebook vulnerabilities such as using codes to register blue pages for fake fanpages - Mr. Tri said.
Meanwhile, according to Facebook's algorithm, fanpages with blue numbers and higher followers will often display first. This makes tourists easily confused, while scammers just need to " sit still waiting for prey".
Mr. Nguyen Van Thin - security expert of Chongluadao - said that before contacting the fanpage, users also need to carefully check the interaction.One of the signs to recognize is that fake fanpages often have uneven post interactions (with very few articles, with unusually high articles).Interactive accounts in articles are also often fake, newly created, and almost inactive accounts.
"People absolutely do not transfer deposits until the reputation of the subject has been verified.During the transaction process, please slow down and be careful with each step, said Mr. Thin.
