Many in Vietnam are willing to ‘lend’ their names to others in order to open ATM card accounts and receive cash gifts, unaware that they make themselves future scam victims by doing so.

Local banks have confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that many of their ATM cardholders had been paid to open accounts without really using them.

Truong, one worker in District 9, Ho Chi Minh City told Tuoi Tre that his family had recently had first-hand experience of being “paid to open ATM card accounts” by a neighbor.

“The man persuaded my wife, my sister-in-law and me to open new card accounts to help him meet new customer targets,” Truong recalled.

“We were asked to use our ID card to open five ATM card accounts at five different banks, and would receive VND200,000 [US$8.93] for each card.”

Truong said the offer was so attractive that many people, including his wife An, could not resist.

An said she and others who accepted the offer were taken to a café, where some people were waiting with all the necessary papers and a bunch of SIM cards.

“They appeared very well-prepared to meet us,” An said.

“They gave each of us a new SIM card, telling us to declare this new phone number in the account application instead of our real numbers.”

An added that they were also told to confirm with the bank’s employees, if asked, that “[we] want to open the accounts for our own use rather than following anyone’s request.”

Dung, a breakfast vendor in Truong’s neighborhood, said she had accepted the offer to earn easy money, but soon regretted the decision.

“At first I simply thought I would have some extra money by spending one morning going to the bank, but then I started to worry,” she said.

When Dung told the man she would not go to take her cards, he began threatening her. “Luckily he finally moved out of the neighborhood, so I immediately rushed to the bank to have all my newly opened accounts invalidated,” she added.

Consequences

One banker at a major bank in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, told Tuoi Tre that it is likely that the ‘bank card brokers’ are scammers.

By asking people to open new ATM card accounts, the scammers obtain the personal information of these people for fraudulent purposes, the banker said.

Scammers may also secretly have all the credentials needed to use those accounts, so they can easily withdraw money from them.

“The scammers may impersonate police officers or court officials to call these cardholders, threaten that they are involved in some serious case and ask them to wire money to the accounts,” he elaborated.

Similar frauds include telling cardholders they have won big money prizes and asking them to transfer fees in order to complete procedures to claim their prizes, according to the banker.

The head of a card division at one District 3 bank also told Tuoi Tre that he had once worked with police in a case involving a person who was paid to open an ATM card account.

“The cardholder was summoned to work with police officers as he was the owner of the account which scammers channeled their dirty money into,” the banker said.

“People who are paid to open bank accounts would normally forget that they have those accounts until they are in trouble.”

Tran Quang Thoai, a bank card expert, warned people against opening bank accounts upon others’ request because “the consequences are always beyond their awareness.”

“These people may be asked to sign a number of documents, which may include agreements to open credit card accounts,” Thoai said.

“So the scammers can freely withdraw money from those accounts without worrying about paying the debts as the cards are not registered in their names.”

With the scammers now targeting victims in rural areas, Thoai warned people not to "put themselves in trouble for a small cash gift.”

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