The Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) has released a report on the scam situation in Asian countries and regions, including Vietnam. The report was conducted by GASA, Gogolook and Vietnamese Chong lua dao project.

Since Covid-19 in 2020, many Asian countries have endeavored to bring the operations of their economies and people into the digital environment. This has brought about a considerable increase of online scam activities, especially in Southeast Asia.

Hong Kong (China) has the highest online scam proportion, with 45 percent of respondents saying they encounter fraud every day and 26 percent saying they encounter fraud every week, figures which are higher than other regions.

Thailand has the second highest fraud frequency proportion with 16 percent of respondents encountering fraud daily and 30 percent every week.

By contrast, the frequency in the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia and China is relatively low.

The report shows that Vietnam is in the middle with 10 percent of surveyed internet users coping with fraud every day, 20 percent every week and 25 percent once every several months.

According to GASA’s Jorij Abraham, calls and SMS messages remain the most common scam channels.

Fraudulent calls and SMS messages were the two top positions among popular fraud channels in 8 out of 11 countries and territories surveyed.

Whosecall reported that the number of phishing calls and messages that an Asian person receives has increased from 8.9 in 2020 to 15 in 2022, which mean the annual growth rate of 29.8 percent.

In Vietnam, 80.2 percent of respondents said scammers approach them via phones, 57.5 percent via SMS, and 49.9 percent via OTT messaging apps.

Digital platforms, including social media, messaging apps, forums, e-commerce sites and digital ads have also become hot spots for scam activities.

In all the surveyed countries, except for China, Facebook is among the top five platforms where users face highest scam risks.

In Vietnam, the rate of scam risks users face when using Facebook is 71.5 percent. The figures are 29.5 percent for Gmail, 28 percent for Telegram, 12.9 percent for Google and 12.8 percent for TikTok.

The most common fraud scenarios include financial fraud (12.5 percent), shopping (12.3 percent), data theft (12.2 percent), employment (9 percent) and charity (4.8 percent).

Nearly 16 percent of victims in Vietnam said they did not recognize fraud, while 21.9 percent become victims due to being lured with attractive incentives, and about 18 percent responded too quickly to scammers' requests.

Meanwhile, only 26 percent of victims have reported fraud to appropriate agencies.

Van Anh