GASA (the Global Anti-Scam Alliance) and the Vietnamese non-profit cybersecurity organization ChongLuaDao (scam fighter) have released a report about online scams in Vietnam in 2023.
The report is based on a survey of 1,063 Vietnamese with an aim to give a comprehensive view about the level of online scams.
GASA reported that in the last 12 months, each Vietnamese person faced 0.8 scam cases on average.
The financial losses caused by the scams were serious with 29 percent of surveyed people saying they lost money, and the average loss incurred was VND17.7, or $734.
Facebook and Gmail have emerged as the major channels exploited by scammers to approach victims in Vietnam. At least 71 percent of polled people said they were scammed via widely-used platforms.
The other channels included Telegram (28 percent), Google (13 percent) and TikTok (13 percent), which were at the 3rd-5th positions among the most exploited channels for scams. Investment fraud was the most common type of fraud with 13 percent of polled people reporting.
If extrapolating from the data, a reasonable estimate is that the total loss may reach VND391.8 trillion, or $16.23 billion.
Also according to GASA, 70 percent of Vietnamese face fraud once a month. However, 55 percent of surveyed people believe that they can recognize scams, while 14 percent said they were not confident about the situation.
Joriji Abraham, head of GASA, said only one percent of victims could claim back the money they lost.
Twenty two percent of victims said they could not resist the temptation from attractive offers. Others were trapped by indecision or impulsive actions. Up to 66 percent of victims did not want to report the scams to authorities.
Chongluadao’s experts have advised people to be cautious when they are contacted by subjects with unclear origins.
Vu Quoc Thanh, Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Information Security Association (VNISA), said it is difficult to accurately calculate the number of victims, but experts estimate that it accounts for 0.5 percent of population.
The scams succeed because hackers collect personal information, so protecting personal information is more important than ever.
