Vietnamese lender Vietcombank was forced to freeze some customers’ accounts after a drove of unauthorized transactions were reported earlier this week.

Customers of Vietcombank took to Facebook to complain one after another about receiving text messages notifying them of card transactions which they did not perform on Tuesday.

User L.H.K. wrote on his Facebook that he received several messages notifying him of “unsuccessful transactions” on his Vietcombank VISA card.

K. said the notifications continued to flood his inbox even after he had reported the issue to the bank and had his account frozen.

According to K., several other customers of Vietcombank also reported the same unauthorized transactions, all of which were performed at “City of Whitehorse” and other locations with Latin names.

A Facebook user named N.D.T. claimed that he lost CAD$3 (US$2.27) for a transaction at “City of Whitehorse,” which he did not authorize.

The unusual transactions have cast doubt on Vietcombank’s security system.

However, Vietcombank confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday that the issue is neither due to a security error nor related to the bank’s recent upgrade of its banking system.

In a statement issued on the same day, Vietcombank said that through regular monitoring, its card risk management system detected a number of fake transactions that were made on an overseas payment site.

“In order to ensure the safety of customers’ payment cards, Vietcombank would freeze the cards that have processed transactions on this payment page,” the bank said in the statement.

“Cards that are locked in this case will be reissued for free."

Regarding the lost money, Vietcombank affirmed that it would refund customers as soon as possible for transactions that were not made by the card owners.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!