Enough sophisticated tricks
Most recently, a representative of Viet Tourism Media Joint Stock Company said that recently, bad guys have used many forms of advertising on social networks, created fan pages with the trick of imitating brand names to sell tours to Japan at a super cheap price of 6,999 million VND/person for a 6-day trip. Some customers have had their deposits stolen and were lured into using cheap promotions. According to the company, there was an individual customer who informed about registering for a Japan tour here and was invited by the group to a cafe to collect their deposit.
In addition, the scam also targets high demand during peak season, many groups of people impersonate many businesses to contact and invite people to join social network chat groups and Telegram to do tasks, like ads and get rewards from 50,000 VND and gradually increase to hundreds of millions of VND, depending on the number of consecutive ad liking tasks.
Impersonating a tourism business to trick people into liking ads for money. Photo: Provided by the business
Ms. M - a victim living in Dong Nai - was shocked and recounted: “The subjects added me to a group tasked with liking advertisements for a business. The first tasks they paid into the account to create trust. Then, with the reason of an error in the operation, I needed to reload all the money they had transferred to me and add an amount corresponding to the commission. A total of 129 million VND to verify that it was me before I could withdraw the money. They presented a Commitment Contract but used the logo of Viet Tourism Company. And when I loaded nearly 300 million VND, the group of subjects stopped responding.”
People need to be more vigilant
According to recommendations from the Ministry of Public Security, there are a number of common tourist season scams that people can easily fall into.
The group of scammers will post advertisements for cheap tours and hotel rooms on the internet and social networks with many additional benefits, asking the victims to transfer a deposit of 30-50% and then take possession of the property.
In another form, the suspected scammer will post an advertisement for a foreign tourist visa service, promising a high success rate and a 100% refund if the visa is not granted.
With more sophisticated tricks, the scammers will fake the website/fanpage of a reputable travel company, fake photos of receipts and payment invoices and ask the victim to transfer money to pay for the tour. After the customer transfers money to pay for the travel service, the suspects will block contact and erase all traces.
Notably, a new form of fraud has emerged where criminals use Deepfake technology (a technology that applies artificial intelligence to create videos with images and faces of characters that are identical to the image of the person being impersonated) to gain the victim's trust.
With this trick, criminals will fake or hijack social media users' accounts, contact relatives on the friend list to say they are stranded while traveling abroad and need money immediately. The scam group can use Deepfake technology and make video calls to make the victim think they are talking to their relatives and the need to borrow money is real, from there transfer money to the subjects.
Another method is that scammers impersonate airline ticket agents, create their own websites and social networking sites with similar addresses and designs to the channels of airlines or official agents, then advertise with very attractive prices compared to the general level to attract customers.
Speaking to the press, a representative of a travel agency emphasized that: "When searching for or registering for tourism products, tourists should carefully research the tour program and services, including and not including what is included, then choose to book tours, rooms, and airline tickets from reputable companies; they can ask the company to show them the business license, documents, etc. of the travel agency or tourism company.
In particular, be cautious with requests to transfer a deposit to hold a reservation. If possible, make the payment directly at the company's office headquarters and be especially wary of promises to collect money at restaurants and cafes. In that case, visitors can contact the phone numbers and contact channels of the companies themselves on many official media to verify.
