This is of course not the first victim and is likely not the last victim of scams through livestreams of "scoring lottery tickets" on Facebook, mainly targeting trust with technology and psychological scripts that are rampant on social networks.
It is no coincidence that subjects choose livestreaming as a "scene". This is a tool that gathers all the elements that easily cause real illusions from direct images, continuous interaction and especially the feeling of "being witnessed firsthand" of the "prey".
When one person sees someone else winning a prize right in front of them, suspicion is naturally neutralized. Belief is no longer built by reason but controlled by emotion.
Furthermore, these scam scenarios are also not simple, if not to say elaborate, layered and intentional, from creating fake accounts, creating the winning effect, to "giving winnings first" and then requesting to pay fees.
Such a scenario makes victims not fall into the trap from the beginning but be led step by step, from curiosity, trust, then expectation, so that in the end there is no way back.
Losing more than 1 billion VND after believing in livestreams of "scoring lottery tickets" on Facebook like the woman in Lang Son and many other victims in the past time, then of course the victims have factors such as being "gullible" or "interested".
Because in reality, such scams hit a very common psychology of most victims, which is the desire to improve their lives with a quick opportunity.
However, the bigger problem lies in the fact that forms of fraud are changing faster than the awareness of a part of the population.
If in the past, fraud often had a rudimentary, easily recognizable appearance, now it has been "upgraded" by technology, by the media and by a deep understanding of human behavior.
Cyberspace has long been not only a place for communication and entertainment but also a high-risk environment if self-defense skills are lacking. One click, one money transfer, can lead to very serious consequences. And more worryingly, many people only realize they have been deceived when everything is too late.
Over the past time, functional agencies from the Central to local levels have also issued many recommendations and instructions... for people about tricks and online scams, but clearly it is still not enough to prevent them.
Because in most cases, victims do not think they are doing anything wrong. They believe they are participating in a legitimate, even "lucky" opportunity. This confusion makes the warnings invalid.
Therefore, in addition to propaganda, new solutions are also needed to improve people's "digital resistance". New solutions must be specific, easy-to-remember, and easy-to-apply principles.
For example, there is a very basic principle that all forms of prize winning that require payment in advance have signs of fraud. If this principle had been identified early, many losses could not have occurred.
