Being cheated out of money when registering for a run through a fake fanpage: The person involved is helpless

With the good intention of contributing some of his strength and money to the less fortunate, a retiree living in Hanoi was scammed out of 20 million VND when he registered to participate in a community race, through a fanpage named the 2025 walk-run race for Agent Orange victims.

"Trick" is too attractive

On Facebook, the fanpage "WALKING - RUNNING FOR AGENT ORANGE VICTIMS 2025" has more than 3,000 likes and 3,500 followers. This page introduces itself as a "Community organization, charity organization". Recently, this page posted an article introducing the 2025 walking - running event for Agent Orange victims, which is meant to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the Vietnam Agent Orange Disaster Day (August 10, 1961 - August 10, 2025), organized by the Association of Agent Orange Victims.

Thanh Nien Newspaper contacted a representative of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin and received a response that the association currently does not have a fanpage posting about organizing any running events like the above.

A representative of the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin confirmed that the association is not currently organizing any races.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

Accordingly, to attract more participants, the fanpage "WALKING - RUNNING FOR AGENT ORANGE VICTIMS 2025" posted an article with an impressive "invitation". The organizers' (OC) wish is to raise funds to support victims of Agent Orange/dioxin in Vietnam; spread the message of humanity, call on the community to act together for the less fortunate; arouse the spirit of sportsmanship , positive lifestyle, and community connection. Race information: for all subjects, from individuals, families, groups, businesses; organized online; when successfully registered, each athlete will receive a pair of shoes with a chip integrated with technology connected to the application of the BTC to accumulate distance; each completed kilometer will receive 5,000 VND to build the Agent Orange Victims Support Fund.

Participant benefits: receive a certificate of completion of the race; have the opportunity to participate in a lucky draw and receive meaningful gifts from sponsors such as t-shirts, hats, shoes, bluetooth headphones and souvenirs from the Organizing Committee; health check-up vouchers for the whole family; participate in community activities with the Organizing Committee nationwide.

With easy registration and participation (online), attractive benefits, and profound humanistic meaning, this fanpage has received attention. In the comments section, many people praised the meaning of the event and expressed their desire to participate.

Sophisticated and skillful tricks to build trust

Upon receiving a registration request, the admin (group administrator) will send a link for the person who wants to participate to fill in the information. After that, the participant is asked to download the Lotus application and contact the consultant, to complete the final approval step (ie participate in the survey) to participate in the above charity run. This is when the scam appears!

At this time, Ms. PLH (63 years old), a retired official living in Hanoi , successfully installed the Lotus application and contacted the consultant. Before participating in the survey, Ms. H. was advised as follows: "After completing this second round of selection, athletes will be officially approved to become athletes of the 2025 walk-run for Agent Orange victims. During the selection period, I require you to concentrate highly and be online regularly to receive notifications from the system.

Before receiving the survey, I have a few important things to remind the athletes: do not do it yourself without my instructions; do not exceed the survey deadline; pay attention to the transaction content, product denomination, order survey, and product interaction survey linked in the survey; during the survey receiving process, if there is any problem that you do not understand and need to be answered, please ask me immediately for support. Especially note: when the survey is delivered, you have the right to accept or not accept it. But when you have received the survey, you are required to complete the survey and not make too many mistakes to directly affect the credit score on your personal profile (the initial credit score is 100/100) then the system will confirm the completion of the survey and pass that survey to pay you.

Speaking to Thanh Nien , Ms. H. said that the first order was a pair of shoes worth 2.39 million VND. "I thought it was a pair of shoes with a chip that the organizers would send me so that I could participate in an online run to count the number of kilometers," Ms. H. recalled. After clicking on the order, Ms. H. was instructed to transfer money to the organizers' bank account. Immediately after the successful transfer, the amount of 2.39 million VND was immediately returned to Ms. H.

This is a trick to build trust, attracting registrants to continue participating in surveys with higher value orders.

Ms. H. said: "After paying for the first order and getting a refund immediately, I continued to participate in the second survey phase, called the multi-order phase, which means having to pay for 3 consecutive products. The first product costs 5.2 million VND, product 2 costs 15.7 million VND, and product 3 costs up to 39.9 million VND. I transferred the first 2 products, totaling 20.9 million VND. By the third product, the account no longer had enough money."

"...due to gullibility"

After her account was depleted, Ms. H. contacted the consultant to ask for a refund of the payment for the first two products, but received an indifferent answer, that participants were not allowed to leave the survey halfway. "The consultant said that when I had enough money, I would notify them to extend the survey time. If I was not sure, I could report it to the authorities," Ms. H. expressed her helplessness.

Since then, Ms. H. has been unable to contact the consultant and had to sadly lose more than 20 million VND. It is known that this was the amount of money she had saved from her monthly pension (about 6 million VND per month).

"My husband and children have repeatedly advised me not to participate in programs like this. I am gullible, found the event very humane and also love running, so I wanted to contribute a part to those less fortunate. But I did not expect to lose money for nothing," Ms. H. confided.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/bi-lua-tien-khi-dang-ky-chay-bo-qua-fanpage-gia-mao-nguoi-trong-cuoc-bat-luc-185250712183033722.htm