Beware of tricks pretending to be medical staff, scamming and appropriating property

Bạch Huy Hoàng
Aug 17, 2022
3 min read

The trick of the scammers is to claim to be an employee of the Center for COVID-19 Disease Control to call and ask the person with F0 to meet and work, and offer to transfer money so as not to be quarantined.

Fake medical staff scam

On April 4, the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department warned people about the trick of pretending to be a medical staff to take advantage of the COVID-19 epidemic to make fraudulent calls to appropriate property.

The Department of Health of Ho Chi Minh City and the switchboard of the City's Department of Health have also received many complaints from people about this trick in recent times.

Specifically, the City Police said, the trick of the scammers is to claim to be an employee of the COVID-19 Center for Disease Control to call and ask the person who is positive for SARS-CoV-2 to meet. working, requesting to transfer money so as not to be sent to quarantine. This is a trick to impersonate a medical staff to scare and scam people to appropriate property.

These objects use unknown cell phone numbers and prefixes (like +18444 1265410, +18445 3440501...). The police agency recommends that people, when encountering this case, should immediately report it to the local police for support and handling according to regulations.

In addition, the Ho Chi Minh City Police continue to ask people to be wary of fraudulent phone calls.

Previously, as the Vietnam News Agency reported, the police agency warned about the trick of impersonating customer care staff of network operators, banks, and e-wallets to assist in solving problems.

Specifically, fraudsters and high-tech criminals ask customers to text with the syntax **21*#. However, the **21*# syntax is actually the call forwarding syntax (Call Forward) - a service of network operators such as Mobifone, Vinaphone, and Vietnamobile that allows mobile subscribers to redirect calls to a number on-net or off-net phone.

Then, the subjects will remotely log in to the victim's Momo wallet application. Momo operator will call to provide OTP code, but this call is redirected to the subject's phone number. From there, the bad guy appropriated the money in the wallet, the bank account associated with the wallet.

Bad guys can also ask customers to text with the syntax DS to send 901. This is the syntax to change the phone sim through a blank sim card by texting method (SMS). After that, the bad guys will send fraudulent messages that help users upgrade the phone sim to 4G, 5G SIM.

These objects require the user to text in the above syntax. When the operation is successful, the user will lose control of the sim because the fraudster's sim becomes the "original" sim and accesses the e-wallet application and online payment application to appropriate money.