Taking advantage of information about merging communes and wards to commit fraud

After the two-level government model officially came into operation from July 1, 2025, the country now has 34 provinces and cities and 3,321 commune-level administrative units. Taking advantage of the information on the arrangement and merger, scammers have impersonated state management agencies such as: Local police, civil status officers of new communes and wards, calling to instruct people to access links or install fake VNeID applications containing malware to take control of phones, thereby appropriating people's assets.

The methods and tricks of the subjects are to call using regular mobile phone numbers or virtual switchboards, impersonating agencies and organizations, introducing themselves as officials of commune, ward, or local police, etc., to announce changes in the administrative apparatus, and asking people to update new information. The subjects have collected people's personal information in advance and provided it to create trust before asking them to follow their instructions.

In particular, the subjects often ask people to access the link provided by them or install the VNeID application, a fake public service containing malware. After people have accessed or installed the application, they take control of the device, continue to lure people to follow the instructions to find a way to get the OTP code of the bank account or lure people to look at the phone to get biometric data, thereby appropriating money in the people's bank account.

Not only taking advantage of updating VNeID, scammers also target parents whose children are about to enter primary school (grade 1, grade 6, grade 10, university, etc.) to commit fraud. The most common of these is the request to update and adjust student information via a link, in order to be able to appropriate money in the account. Therefore, recently, many schools and local police forces have had to issue notices to be alert to a new form of fraud related to updating and supplementing student information for primary school enrollment. Accordingly, currently, taking advantage of the time of enrollment for primary school classes, online scammers impersonate ward and commune police to request parents to update their children's level 2 electronic identification to supplement their exam and primary school enrollment records. But in fact, this is a new scam trick, if people follow the instructions of the subjects, click on the link, provide their account, identification photo, money in their account will be appropriated.

Recently, taking advantage of the Party and State's tuition exemption policy for students at all levels of education, many scammers have impersonated employees of the Department of Education and Training and schools to call and text to request documents to be refunded tuition fees, thereby defrauding and appropriating people's money.

Faced with the above situation, the police force recommends that people absolutely do not follow the phone requests of callers claiming to be commune, ward, or local police officers. If you need to update information, you must go directly to the commune or ward police where you live. In case people have accessed a link or installed an application containing malicious code, immediately contact the bank to lock the account and turn off the phone, not giving the subjects the opportunity to obtain the bank's OTP code or biometric data. At the same time, report to the nearest police station when being scammed and having your property appropriated.

People need to be vigilant and not follow any instructions from strange calls. When receiving suspicious information related to updating personal information, enrollment, tuition exemption, etc., they need to directly contact the homeroom teacher or the nearest commune or ward police to verify.

In the era of science and technology exploding and developing, high-tech fraud is also flourishing. Therefore, people need to be extremely vigilant, verify and re-check information to avoid losing money unjustly, along with propaganda and mobilizing family, friends and relatives to be vigilant against new fraud methods and tricks.

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/loi-dung-thong-tin-sap-nhap-xa-phuong-de-lua-dao-3367134.html