Lost billions after doing online tasks
In early January 2025, Mr. Van Toan (name changed), 61 years old, residing in Cam Pha City, Quang Ninh Province, received an invitation to work as an online collaborator at home, only needing to do the task of increasing interaction for the Lazada e-commerce platform to receive daily commission.
Believing the invitation of the subjects and seeing that the job was simple and had income, Mr. Toan followed the subjects' instructions. Mr. Toan transferred money many times, with a total amount of more than 1.7 billion VND to perform the task of purchasing goods, but then could not withdraw the principal and commission. Knowing that he had been scammed, Mr. Toan went to the Criminal Police Department, Quang Ninh Provincial Police to report.
With the above tricks, scammers often set up fanpages on the Facebook platform with the content of providing support services to build booths or recruiting collaborators to work online on e-commerce platforms. When people ask, the scammers will use fake Facebook accounts to make friends, get acquainted, and invite them to open booths on e-commerce platforms, instructing them to do purchasing tasks to appropriate property.
Authorities confirmed that e-commerce platforms such as Shopee and Lazada currently do not have programs to recruit collaborators or perform tasks to increase their interactions. Invitations with similar content are all scams.
In light of the above situation, the Department of Information Security (Ministry of Information and Communications) recommends that people should be vigilant against promises of high incomes and easy jobs without qualifications. Verify information from official sources and do not trust unclear announcements or information channels. Do not provide personal information, bank account information or passwords to anyone. At the same time, set up two-factor authentication for online accounts and update passwords regularly. In case of suspicion of being scammed, people should immediately report to the authorities or consumer protection organizations for timely support, resolution and prevention.
“Golden time” for scammers
Mr. Nguyen Hung - Information security expert, R&D Director at Vietnix Hosting said that before Tet is always the "golden time" for scammers to carry out their actions. Because this is the time when people have a lot of accumulated wealth after a year of working.
Mr. Hung pointed out that signs of fraudulent recruitment posts on social networks often do not have clear information about the job, but only have contact phone numbers or contact messages via other social networks such as Zalo, Telegram... The common trick of scammers is to ask candidates to do tasks/transfer deposits before the interview. When encountering these cases, people need to immediately block contact.
Cybersecurity expert Ngo Minh Hieu - co-founder of Cypeace and Chongluadao.vn said that when looking for a job, people need to contact the business directly and absolutely should not look for jobs on social networks.
Mr. Hieu commented that, near the Lunar New Year, people are not only scammed by job recruitment methods, but also by other tricks such as: financial investment fraud, emotional fraud and impersonation of others.
Recent reports from victims show a clear trend of many scammers operating from “scam farms” in Southeast Asia, moving from Telegram to Signal as their primary communication platform. Scammers approach victims via social media, build trust, and then lure them to Signal to continue their scams.
