Falling into the 'tourism review' trap, Hanoi man loses 116 million in 3 days

Mr. Th. said that about 2 weeks ago, he was friended by a Facebook account named Khanh Huyen. After chatting for a while, Huyen "told" Mr. Th. a "simple" way to make money online.

Huyen sent Mr. Th. a website link, which was said to be from a reputable travel company. Mr. Th. registered an account using his phone number, created a password, and logged in. They did the assigned tasks together to receive commissions, competing with many other couples.

On March 14, Mr. Th. started logging in and was told by the website's customer service staff that he needed to deposit 500,000 VND to redeem points for use in the application.

The staff introduced that each day, customers can participate in a maximum of 30 reviews. For every 15 successful reviews, they will receive a "25% commission". Mr. Th. saw the website interface and professional consultants, so he trusted them.

"The staff introduced me to the travel company Best Price Travel and the domain name is bestpricetravel.com. I searched the Internet and found that BestPrice is a long-standing company. I did not find any difference in the website name using the two letters 'i'," he said.

After logging in, Mr. Th. clicked on the "rating" box 15 times. After completing, Mr. Th. received a notification that he had been awarded 75 points.

Mr. Th. wanted to continue to rate all the times of the day to receive the commission. However, the staff said: "The system has just checked, you need to add 200 points, equivalent to 1,000,000 VND to complete this lucky location."

Mr. Th. transferred 1,000,000 VND to the account holder named Nguyen Anh Tu. After he deposited money, the system notified him that he needed 600 more points, equivalent to 3,000,000 VND.

"I was suspicious so I texted that I didn't have enough money in my account. The staff continued to convince me to try to deposit within the day so that the system could process and report to the investor. Because I wanted to get back the 1,500,000 I had deposited, I listened and deposited another 3,000,000 VND."

After this transaction, Mr. Th. went to the website and continued to click on the travel review. The application displayed a message: "This itinerary can receive more commission and needs to compensate the difference of 1464.82 points".

Mr. Th. contacted the customer service staff and was asked to deposit an additional 7,500,000 VND.

Similar to the previous time, the system asked Mr. Th. to add the difference to get a higher commission. Mr. Th. transferred an additional 17,000,000 VND. The total amount Mr. Th. transferred now is 29,000,000 VND.

At this point, the scam started to change. When Mr. Th. clicked to withdraw money, the system said he had to pay taxes.

Mr. Th. was explained: "You are a lucky customer who received many high commission trips, so the disbursement amount exceeded the regulations. You need to pay personal income tax and 30% value added tax. The tax payment amount is 12,997,000 VND".

This employee also said that the total amount of 43,325,000 VND (PV - including the money Mr. Th. transferred and the commission added in the previous system) will be disbursed immediately after Mr. Th. pays the tax. Thus, he will then receive 56,332,000 VND.

"The staff also sent me a picture of the tax payment confirmation document provided by BestPrice Travel, with full information about the company, my information, the tax payment amount, and the total amount received after payment. The document has the signature and seal of the company director."

At this time, Mr. Th. asked if it was possible to deduct tax from the accumulated points, but the staff said no. "Seeing that the information was reasonable, I transferred nearly 13 million VND as requested. But now they told me that I had entered the wrong transaction content.

This content was written in the tax payment confirmation document but I did not pay attention to it. Before I transferred the money, the staff only urged me to transfer the money without reminding me to read it carefully," said Mr. Th.

With this method, the staff asked Mr. Th. to pay an additional 25,994,000 as required.

Mr. Th. kept asking "Is this a scam?" but the staff only then highlighted the requirements in the document in red. Mr. Th. asked to come directly to the company, but the staff gave the office address in Ho Chi Minh City and the Hanoi office "is under maintenance and upgrade."

The staff explained and "blamed" Mr. Th. for the incorrect transfer. "I felt like I was being psychologically manipulated so I continued to transfer money. When the transfer was completed, they said the character was 'letter O' instead of 'number 0', and asked for an additional 51,988,000 VND.

I completed the request correctly but still could not withdraw money to my account, the system kept reporting errors. After discussing, the customer service staff informed me that the operation was wrong and needed to be updated to 60,239,000 VND," said Mr. Th.

At this point, Mr. Th. was sure that he had been scammed. His friend Khanh Huyen, who introduced him to the job of "reviewing travel for money", also turned around and even edited Mr. Th.'s photo to threaten him to continue depositing money.

"I contacted BestPrice company and was told that the website and confirmation document were both fake. I have reported the incident to the police of Pham Dinh Ho ward, Hai Ba Trung district, Hanoi," said Mr. Th.

Mr. Huynh D. (from Tra Vinh) was also scammed out of more than 30 million VND with the same trick as Mr. Th. "When the customer service staff sent a tax payment confirmation document, I looked up the company's tax code on it and found the information matched. Therefore, I transferred the money. But when they told me that I had transferred the wrong syntax, I felt something was wrong. I contacted BestPrice company via Zalo and found out that the website was fake. I did not pay attention to the fact that the website name had two letters 'i'", said Mr. D.

Mr. Bui Thanh Tu, Marketing Director of BestPrice, said that the company has received feedback from 8 customers about the same form of fraud as Mr. Th. and Mr. D.

"The impersonation seriously affects our company's reputation. The subject forged both the company's signature and seal," said Mr. Tu.

BestPrice has continuously posted warnings about impersonation to deceive customers. This unit has had fanpages set up impersonating the company, impersonating employees, illegally using images of awards, licenses, etc.

"We also publicly announce ways to contact the company such as the hotline number, 3 official offices, and official media channels. However, customers only come to us when they discover they have been scammed," said Mr. Tu.

This unit is ready to coordinate with authorities to clarify information about fraud cases.