There are many forms of impersonating large enterprises to commit fraud.

Many businesses in the retail industry said they suffered losses not only in sales but also in brand reputation - which had cost a lot of time, effort and money to build over many years.

Impersonating and challenging the owner

As the iPhone gained traction, Apple Authorized Resellers (AARs) faced intense competition. Impersonation also flourished.

"Not only is the 24hStore system constantly impersonated on social networking sites, it is also impersonated by employees in many provinces and cities. There have been customers who were tricked into buying fake iPhones and came to our store to complain. After checking the invoice, they discovered that it was not from the system," said Ms. Anh Hong, representative of the 24hStore retail system.

Ms. Hong said that despite continuously using many measures from warning people to reporting to authorities, the impersonation situation has not decreased.

“

400
That is the number of times fraud reports are sent to the National Cyber ​​Security Monitoring Center each week.

Source: Ministry of Information and Communications

"Even when we warned the impostors, they loudly challenged us, considering their blatant impersonation as normal," Ms. Hong shared, adding that this made customers feel hesitant and worried when making purchases, and the reputation and brand of the business were severely affected.

Continuously being impersonated by bad guys for a long time, representatives of The Gioi Di Dong and Dien May Xanh were frustrated: "We are the victims, the damage to our reputation is difficult to measure."

According to records, one of the most common scams is when scammers contact customers claiming to be Dien May Xanh employees and invite them to participate in product reviews to receive money or gifts from the gratitude program.

In particular, the bad guys used the real website link of Dien May Xanh, and even provided verification documents showing that this was actually a system program.

After gaining trust, the bad guys set traps using sophisticated steps with the participation of many "company personnel" to provide advice, the ultimate goal is to ask customers to transfer money in advance to receive a larger commission or receive goods... After people transfer money, they will turn off all communication.

A representative of the Dien May Xanh system affirmed that this system "does not make direct sales calls, call for warranty packages, does not have a program to recruit collaborators to work at home, does not call customers to evaluate products to earn money, does not call to give away many products in multiple times, does not require customers to transfer money to receive gifts... We also do not call directly to offer big discounts...".

According to the representative of this system, in addition to forging official documents and seals, bad guys also steal personal information and images of Dien May Xanh employees to create trust. More sophisticatedly, they also use information with "signs" related to Dien May Xanh, such as using transfer names that include the words Dien May Xanh or DMX...

Impersonation spares no one

Recently, the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy under the Ministry of Industry and Trade had to speak up to warn about this unit being impersonated for fraud.

Previously, the department had cooperated with the Amazon Global Selling program to implement an initiative to contribute to capacity building and open up export opportunities through e-commerce. However, many bad guys have deliberately used the logo, name of the department, and the Amazon Global Selling program, causing businesses and people to misunderstand and fall into traps.

In early August, VNG Corporation also had to warn about impersonating the company. The impersonator contacted candidates and sent them a job description, and invited them to join a chat group on the Telegram platform under the pretext of interviewing and testing their abilities.

Candidates are asked to download additional applications, fill in personal information and deposit money into their accounts with an invitation to support the project and a promise to pay a sum of money even though they are not yet official employees.

According to VNG, their recruiters will never ask candidates to download apps or provide banking details in any way they communicate with them...

FPT Corporation and its member companies were also impersonated to commit recruitment fraud. They arranged to meet candidates right at the foot of the FPT Tower building after office hours for interviews; sent messages advising on FPT positions that were recruiting on job websites; sent links instructing candidates to log in and deposit money...

There are even scammers who use images of the corporation's human resources director and leaders of FPT member companies as avatars...

Or MISA Joint Stock Company - specializing in providing digital transformation solutions for finance, accounting and business administration - has also warned that there are both websites and mobile applications (Mobile Apps) impersonating MISA to commit fraud...

According to businesses and experts, the most important solution is that when people hear information, they need to check it through official channels, and immediately stop to check when anyone asks for information related to accounts or money transfers. Anything that is simpler and easier to gain benefits is often a scam.

Beware of the "work from home" trick

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Diem (residing in Ba Ria - Vung Tau province) was looking for a job, saw an advertisement online so she registered to receive 1,000 Thien Long ballpoint pens to assemble at home with a remuneration of 12 million VND.

The group impersonating Thien Long employees showed off their business license, red stamps from the authorities, representatives, factory videos... so she trusted them and paid a deposit of 800,000 VND to receive the pen.

After a few days, seeing that things were not going well, Ms. Diem wanted to withdraw her deposit. The scammers asked her to pay an additional 3 million VND to complete the "withdrawal application". However, after receiving the additional 3 million VND, the group disappeared.

"They have a lot of people and play many roles from employees to directors... very skillfully to skillfully appeal to the psychology of customers wanting to do extra work at home," Ms. Diem was upset.

Speaking to reporters, a representative of Thien Long Group Corporation (Ho Chi Minh City) confirmed that in just the past few months, the unit has recorded dozens of victims in many provinces and cities being scammed using the above trick, including a victim who was scammed out of up to 185 million VND.

Thien Long affirms that it has no policy of recruiting or cooperating with any individual or organization related to assembling writing pens at home.