Beware of scams of borrowing money from a bank account with the same name as an acquaintance

Facebook message describing difficult circumstances to borrow money

On June 15, I received a message via my personal Facebook account from a relative saying that their child was seriously ill and needed to borrow money urgently to pay for hospital bills. Before I could reply to the message, the account switched to calling. Since it was inconvenient to answer the phone, I did not answer. After that, I chatted with this account again. All the information seemed very trustworthy, just like the previous times we talked, so I let my guard down and agreed to lend the money. When I entered the bank account number to transfer the money, I saw that the recipient's name matched the name of my relative, so I felt secure in transferring the money.

However, this account immediately asked to borrow more money with the reason that it did not have enough money to pay for the hospital bill for my child, which made me worried and suspicious. I ended the conversation and verified it, only to realize that I had been scammed.

Using social media messaging to scam people into transferring money is not new, but the scam of matching the name of the bank account holder with the personal Facebook owner is a sophisticated trick.

It is known that this form of fraud has appeared recently.

PHAM QUYET(Hai Duong City)