Fake university recruitment scam spreading

The page "University of Medicine and Pharmacy - job channel" is fake

This afternoon, August 11, both medical universities, one in Hanoi and one in Ho Chi Minh City, simultaneously issued a warning about the appearance of fake fanpages and websites impersonating their units to commit recruitment fraud.

According to the announcement of Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, the fanpage "University of Medicine and Pharmacy - Job Channel" regularly reposts articles from the official page, causing confusion for the community and asking for user information for the purpose of introducing jobs, applying for recruitment positions to commit fraud.

PHOTO: QUY HIEN

The University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU Medicine and Pharmacy) also has a similar warning, also with the fanpage "University of Medicine and Pharmacy - Job Channel".

VNU University of Medicine and Pharmacy warns: "Absolutely do not log in, do not provide personal accounts, passwords, or account registration information on the link posted on the above fake Facebook fanpage/website."

Searching on Facebook, I found that the page "University of Medicine and Pharmacy - Job Channel" still exists with many pictures and articles about the activities of both VNU University of Medicine and Pharmacy and Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy. However, the profile picture of the page is the logo of VNU University of Medicine and Pharmacy.

In particular, after searching, the reporter's Facebook homepage showed the above fraudulent recruitment advertisement. The advertisement received 59 likes and 10 shares. Some accounts even marked it to invite their relatives to view it.

Recruitment fraud by psychological manipulation

According to Thanh Nien 's research, the phenomenon of impersonating university fanpages and websites to commit recruitment fraud appeared more than 2 months ago.

On June 19, on the group "University Lecturers" (Facebook platform), a person said that his friend was almost scammed out of money when he was invited to apply for a lecturer position at Hanoi National University (via the page "VNU - Recruitment"). According to the person who was almost scammed, the recruitment steps seemed very professional.

PHOTO: QUY HIEN

But when it came to data entry (implementing a social security project of VNU and its partners), the candidate was instructed to do the task and asked to transfer an advance payment to continue implementing the project. "This is a quite sophisticated scenario of fraud and psychological manipulation," the administrator of this group shared.

Some members of the group said that they had been or were almost fooled by similar tricks, but from fake pages of other universities such as VinUni University,FPT University, University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Vietnam National University, Hanoi...

More daringly, right below the above warning post, some fake accounts "advertised" that they could help scammers get their money back, forcing administrators to "clean up" (delete comments, block accounts). One administrator warned members: "If you want your money back, contact the police to investigate. No individual can get their money back from scammers."

The "College Lecturer" group then had to call on members to take photos of accounts showing signs of fraud or fraudulent behavior and report them to administrators.

How not to be fooled?

Speaking with Thanh Nien , a representative of the Hanoi National University Office confirmed that the VNU – Recruitment fanpage is fake. For many years, Hanoi National University has had to repeatedly request member schools to issue warnings to users about the fact that Hanoi National University and its member units have had their domain names and fanpages faked.

PHOTO: QUY HIEN

According to Hanoi National University, the impostors have taken advantage of the reputation of this university to carry out many acts with bad purposes, including: collecting personal information or defrauding money. Member schools need to advise their users to absolutely not access websites using fake domain names (recently, the website vnuhn.edu.vn is fake) and subdomains of fake sites, as well as unofficial news sites; do not install software and applications from unofficial sources.

Users should never provide personal information to anyone via phone, social networks and other online channels without verifying the recipient's information...