Woman lost 1 billion VND when entering a series of numbers that were not OTP or bank password

GĐXH - After a phone call, a Chinese woman lost all the money in her account after just one phone call using a sophisticated scam.

Woman lost all the money in her account after just one phone call

Illustration

At the end of 2024, Ms. Mai (Shaanxi, China) received a call from a person claiming to be a customer service employee of an insurance company. This person said that the payment deadline for the insurance she had purchased was due, but Ms. Mai said she had never purchased this type of insurance. The person on the other end of the line said that Ms. Mai's personal information was likely stolen to buy the insurance, and if she did not cancel immediately, the money would be deducted directly from her bank account.

Hearing the insurance company employee give her correct information, Ms. Mai became more convinced that someone was using her identity and account to buy insurance. So she agreed to let the employee guide her to cancel the contract. This person sent Ms. Mai a link to cancel the link between her bank card and insurance to avoid automatic deductions in the future.

Ms. Mai, who is not tech-savvy, entered her information into the link but the website kept reporting errors. The insurance agent once again asked Ms. Mai to download an application to directly make video calls and share the screen. In the final step, the subject asked the woman to enter the number "101234" three times for the system to confirm the contract cancellation. Seeing that the other party only asked for the card number in the link without a password or bank OTP, Ms. Mai trusted and followed all the instructions.

It was late at night, so Ms. Mai just wanted to finish the process as soon as possible. However, when the person claiming to be an insurance agent hung up, Ms. Mai's account was deducted a total of more than 300,000 NDT (1 billion VND). In fact, the number Ms. Mai entered was not the confirmation code as the other party introduced, but the amount of 101,234 NDT.

Warning of sophisticated scams that many people have fallen victim to

After discovering that her money was missing, Ms. Mai reported the phone scam to the police. After investigating, the police determined that the scammer had bought Ms. Mai’s basic information to gain her trust, then made her panic by threatening to deduct fees from her bank account if she did not comply.

The link Ms. Mai accessed contained malicious code that made it easy for bad guys to steal more information about Ms. Mai's bank account and take control of the device. Meanwhile, the video calling software was used to collect facial expressions and gestures to create a fake copy (deepfake), bypassing the biometric authentication step in the bank account. The final amount of money entered was only to make Ms. Mai believe that she was not tricked into entering the OTP code or password, prolonging the time for the subjects to transfer money to another account to erase traces, making the investigation process more difficult.

In 2023, a woman surnamed Liu in Sichuan was also scammed with a similar trick when the subject pretended to be a customer service staff and asked her to cancel the service package. As a result, more than 90,000 yuan (more than 300 million VND) in Ms. Liu's account was transferred after she downloaded a screen-sharing "application" that supports the service cancellation operation. The scammer also used this woman's credit account to order a phone, resulting in a large credit debt for Ms. Liu.

In recent years, Chinese police have investigated several scams involving impersonating customer service representatives and asking victims to follow instructions to cancel or activate subscriptions. Criminals trick victims into sharing their phone screens via fake apps or accessing malicious links to provide personal information, then stealing money from their accounts. The criminals target older people who are not tech-savvy and less vigilant, and by the time they discover the scam, the money has already been transferred, making it difficult to trace and recover.

Source: https://giadinh.suckhoedoisong.vn/nguoi-phu-nu-mat-1-ty-dong-khi-nhap-day-so-khong-phai-otp-hay-mat-khau-ngan-hang-canh-bao-thu-doan-lua-dao-moi-nhieu-nguoi-la-nan-nhan-172250226083205882.htm