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Following the scammer’s instructions to upgrade their SIM from 3G to 4G, many customers have lost their SIMs and tens of millions of dong on their credit cards.
Impersonate operator to upgrade to 4G SIM card
A FE Credit customer in Hai Duong said VnExpress You know you lost your SIM card after a person claiming to be an employee of Vinaphone told you “I support changing the SIM card from 3G to 4G”.
At 3:05 p.m. on February 22, a scammer instructed this customer to draft the syntax * 091 * … #. However, right after that, he found that he had lost his phone SIM and urgently asked the operator to lock it.
In just half an hour of winning the SIM, the scammer used the FE Credit app to request the disbursement of more than 37 million and sent a contract code in the system to the SIM. Knowing the incident, he denounced the false behavior and asked the financier to cancel the disbursement of a loan of 37 million, and at the same time block the credit card at 4:45 p.m. on the same day February 22. The finance company staff informed the appropriate department to cancel the rush processing. However, a day later, the offender went to the Hoa Binh post office and used a fake identity card, successfully withdrawing 37 million.
Also, many clients have recently complained to the Competition and Consumer Protection Department (Ministry of Industry and Commerce) for being appropriated in this way.
On January 18, NTHM received a call from a person claiming to be an employee of Vinaphone, announcing that he was using a 3G package, so it should be switched to 4G. After Ms M agreed to update the SIM card, this person prompted her to enter “* 938 * … #” on the phone and told her to turn off the phone, 30 minutes later to restart it.
However, after restarting the device, Ms M discovers that the SIM is disabled and there is no signal. Two days after recovering the SIM card, he received a text message from FE Credit announcing that he had a loan balance of more than VND 49.2 million.
Ms. M confirmed that she had never activated the FE Credit account, but coinciding with the time the SIM was deactivated, her FE Credit card was activated, taking the OTP code to send it to the phone number that the scammer theft. This object has used the card to pay transactions in a store in District 10, Ho Chi Minh City.
Similarly, Ms. PTPT in Ho Chi Minh City had more than 30 million VNDs appropriated from this bogus technique. Ms. T said that on the afternoon of February 20, she received a call from the phone number 024.66704573, claiming to be an employee of Mobifone, submitted a free SIM change, and explained that Covid-19 could not meet in person.
After following the instructions (entering syntax), Ms. T’s SIM also lost signal and was disabled. At the same time, you also received a notification sent to Gmail about the successful password change with the FE Credit app.
After going to the store to request SIM recovery, Ms. T immediately accesses the FE Credit app to check, the FE Credit usage limit is only 70,000 VND, resulting in almost 32 transactions million in just 30 minutes. The old phone’s SIM is disabled.
Exchange with VnExpressThe financial company FE Credit said that it recently discovered many similar cases in which scammers took advantage of the network operator to upgrade the 3G SIM to a 4G SIM to hack the SIM, thus making loan transactions, money through credit card . FE Credit is actively coordinating to provide information and documents to the authorities to investigate and clarify the problem.
Why is it easy to lose SIM, lose money?
In these cases, the scammer takes two steps to take control of the customer’s SIM (through the attempt to upgrade the SIM from 3G to 4G) and use the SIM that he hijacked from the Credit FE credit card application.
To take control of the SIM, the general pattern is to use a compelling reason, such as not being able to meet the SIM delivery customer to limit exposure, spread Covid-19, urge the victim not to upgrade to 4G. Use SIM or change SIM to receive many incentives, promotions … Then instructions on how to write the syntax according to the SIM update request.
Scammers are likely to be able to exploit loopholes in some carriers’ policies that allow customers to upgrade to a 4G SIM at home. The network operator allows customers to purchase a white SIM at a point of transaction without having to provide identification for just VND 25,000. The customer will then enter the serial number of the white SIM in the SIM update request syntax to complete the update process. The thief has taken advantage of this stage to gain control of the SIM. Then use this SIM to receive all kinds of OTP messages from the deceived subscriber to log into the account and make online payments.
As pointed out VnExpress, Today, operators’ white SIM cards are also sold on many e-commerce sites for less than 50,000 VND.
To ensure safety, Mobifone recommends all customers to increase their alert level, beware of abnormal messages, calls that require a SIM replacement or receive unexpected offers. In this case, subscribers should contact the 9090 hotline directly to verify that the contact object is a Mobifone employee or not. At the same time, customers are absolutely prohibited from providing personal information, performing manipulations with strange syntax. If, unfortunately, they comply with the bad man’s request, the subscriber must immediately contact Mobifone, the bank and the police to find a timely solution.
And the Department of Competition and Consumer Protection recommends that when users receive a message or email that contains a strange link, users should not rush or click on that link. Scammers often create websites with domain names similar to brand and reputable company website names to intentionally mislead consumers.
At the same time, users should also improve SIM security. For phone numbers used to authenticate financial transactions, online credit, electronic wallet … it is possible by setting a SIM PIN according to the instructions of the telecommunications companies.
Anh Tu – Quynh Trang
