Be vigilant when using bank accounts

Recently, although authorities and banks have continuously warned about the tricks of impersonating banks to defraud and appropriate customers' assets, many people have still had their assets appropriated by scammers.

Be vigilant when using bank accounts Agribank Nam Thanh Hoa branch staff instructs customers on how to secure electronic banking accounts on smartphones.

"Fall into the trap"...

“Oh... Mom...! My messenger messages were hacked. When I was sleepy, I saw my friend texting me asking to borrow 500,000 VND. I didn't call her back but transferred the money to her account. This afternoon, I called her back and she said she didn't borrow the money. Now that I've checked, I see that I was scammed." My daughter called out of breath.

When she told the story to her colleagues in the same room, Ms. Tran Thi Hoa said that she almost fell into the trap. Ms. Hoa said that because she was busy with her son's wedding, when she received a phone call claiming to be from a VNPT operator saying that her phone number was about to be locked, she followed the staff's instructions to get support. They asked her to read her full name and citizen identification number to check again. After that, they also told her that they checked the system and found that she had a traffic violation in Da Nang, but she had never driven into Da Nang. At that time, she was startled and hung up, and called the bank to lock her account.

As for Le Hong Nhung in Thanh Hoa City, she was unable to log into her SmartBanking account on her phone, then received a text message saying her account number had been locked. When she clicked on the link in the text message to check, all the money she had in her account had "evaporated".

Strengthening the fight against crime

Faced with the complex and increasing developments of fraud crimes in cyberspace and telecommunications, the police force has proactively grasped the situation, prevented and fought against the above types of crimes.

Typically, in 2022, the police of Nhu Xuan district arrested Le Van Vy, born in 1995; Ly Hoang Dieu, born in 2000, both in Son Tra district, Da Nang city and Truong Cong Hay, born in 1995; Nguyen The Hien, born in 1993, both in Duy Xuyen district, Quang Nam province, confiscating 13 mobile phones, 25 SIM cards, 5 bank accounts, 1 laptop and many other objects and documents related to the case.

At the police station, the subjects confessed that their modus operandi was to design fake interfaces of several banks, then the subjects pretended to be bank employees and called to contact and advise customers, informing them that their accounts were having problems due to errors, wrong money transfers, or being locked...

To fix this problem, the subjects sent the account owners a fake link to a bank website and asked them to enter account information, passwords, provide OTP codes, etc. Then, the subjects stole the account owners' personal account information and took over the account login rights to transfer money from their accounts to their own accounts to appropriate. With the above tricks, from 2019 until their arrest, the subjects had appropriated the assets of many account owners nationwide with an amount of more than 5 billion VND.

The Investigation Police Agency of Bim Son Town Police has also just issued decisions to prosecute the case, prosecute the accused and issue an arrest warrant to temporarily detain Le Phu Quoc, born in 2001 in Tan Lap Commune, Huong Hoa District, Quang Tri Province for fraud and appropriation of property. At the end of August 2021, by means of ordering clothes online, Quoc sent a fake link to a bank website for Mr. Nguyen Tuan Anh, born in 2004, in Ward 6, Bac Son Ward, Bim Son Town to access to receive a deposit, thereby appropriating the Internet Banking account and withdrawing all the 398 million VND in the account.

Or one day in early May 2023, Mr. MVN in Cu Phu village, Vu Phuc commune, Thai Binh city went to the headquarters of Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank (LienVietPostBank) Thai Binh branch to request to withdraw all 4 savings books ahead of schedule with a total value of 535 million VND. When seeing that the customer wanted to withdraw all 4 savings books ahead of schedule at the same time, the bank controller talked to him and noticed that Mr. N. had many unusual signs, so he gave many examples of sophisticated tricks of scammers. After being explained by the bank officer, Mr. MVN shared that he was constantly threatened by a subject claiming to be a Thai Binh Provincial Police officer named Tuan Anh, demanding that he transfer money before 5:00 p.m. the same day to clear his name for a drug trafficking and money laundering ring in which he was involved.

Knowing that this was a scam, the bank controller reported the incident to the branch leader who contacted the Thai Binh Provincial Police to coordinate in verifying the subject named Tuan Anh. The Thai Binh Provincial Police confirmed that there was no officer named Tuan Anh working at the Thai Binh Provincial Police as described, and Mr. MVN calmed down and stopped all transactions to close his savings book.

Warning about scams

To keep customers alert to fraudulent tricks to appropriate assets through telecommunications networks, the internet, and social networks, banks have continuously issued warnings to customers to be vigilant against fraud.

Talking to us, Deputy Director of Agribank Nam Thanh Hoa branch Trinh Thi Kim Lien said: Agribank has posted on the bank's website as well as propagated to customers the common forms of fraud today such as impersonating organizations asking customers to provide card information, passwords, PINs, OTPs to conduct illegal money-appropriation transactions; impersonating network operators' employees to request support to convert 3G SIMs to 4G for free to use the phone number to receive OTP codes combined with the customer's collected identification information to activate e-banking services, having access to conduct money-appropriation transactions; impersonating police officers, prosecutors, and courts to threaten customers involved in cases, criminal networks, and requesting customers to transfer money to designated accounts to serve the investigation; impersonating official websites to commit fraud; fraudulently recruiting online collaborators with high commissions; impersonating bank messages; Impersonating websites to transfer/receive money from abroad; taking over social media accounts; offering installment payments, withdrawing cash from credit cards.

Faced with the above tricks, Agribank has advised customers to absolutely not provide personal information (CCCD, ID card, passport...); account information; card security information (card number, PIN, CVV2/CVC2/CAV2 security number, effective date); electronic banking service information (User, login password, OTP code) to anyone, including bank employees; raise vigilance, lock maximum transaction limit, manage cards under control; be careful when using public wifi; transact on reputable, secure websites; check the reliability of websites; handle when suspicious, detect fraud such as proactively locking services on online channels by changing the login password on the Agribank E-Mobile Banking application using the "Change password" function in the "Set password" section. To temporarily lock the card on the Agribank E-Mobile Banking application, select "Lock card" in the "Card service" section. Contact Agribank's 24/7 individual customer hotline 1900558818/024.32053205 immediately if you need support.

To protect customers, VPBank also recommends that customers do not provide OTP/Smart OTP codes, Internet Banking passwords or ATM card PIN numbers, CVV2/CVC2 numbers. Do not provide personal information, identification documents, bank account information to anyone, including those claiming to be police officers, court officials, or bank employees. Be extremely vigilant with messages, calls, and emails asking to access strange website links. Learn and know how to identify safe URL links. Verify the accuracy/reliability of advertising messages displaying brand names by copying the SMS and sending it to 9548 (Viettel), 9241 (Mobifone), 1551 (Vinaphone)...

During the April 30 and May 1 holidays, VietinBank also sent messages to customers warning them to be vigilant against scams through messages impersonating VietinBank; fake calls from relatives, bank officials or authorities. Absolutely do not provide personal information to anyone, in any form...

Along with the recommendations of banks, Thanh Hoa Provincial Police have also warned people to be vigilant when using bank accounts. Absolutely do not access strange links in spam messages received (fraudulent links are only a few characters or details different from the real link, so they can easily confuse customers, especially pay attention to links ending in .vn-eg.top, .vn-eg.xyz, .vn-tr.xyz, .vn-tr.xyz, .vn-zt.top, .vn-tr.top. Links leading to fake websites have an interface similar to the corresponding homepage of the impersonated bank). Only log in to your bank account on your phone using the application you have installed and used regularly before. Do not provide the OTP code sent to your phone number to anyone. If there is a problem with your bank account, immediately contact the bank's customer service center or go directly to a bank branch for instructions.

To prevent and avoid fraud, account owners need to be proactive in being vigilant against the above mentioned tricks of criminals, and not become an unwilling victim and lose money unjustly.

Article and photos: Ngan Ha

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