There is no transfering money into account to take delivery of express goods

Customs agency collected forgeries notification of the customs office that the objects sent to victims. Photo: N.Linh

According to the procedures, when goods arrive, if it has a low tax rate or no tax, it will be defined as no sign of risk. Then the post office will deliver straight to consignees. For high tariff goods or on the list of inspected goods, the post office will announce to the consignees that they need to come to the post office to do procedure on behalf of Customs agency. When doing the procedures, recipients have to show their national identity card in order to prove that they are authorized to receive the goods. For express cargo, if the shipper does the procedure on behalf of customers, customers will pay directly to the shipper when taking delivery of goods.

The leader confirmed that “Customs officers never call directly to customers and tell them to transfer money into a particular account in order to take delivery of express goods or goods from the post office.”

Regarding this issue, General Department of Customs warned people about the fraudulent dispossession trick to get express charge of goods from aboard, even it has established a sophisticated fraud chain.

In the case of Ms. Nguyen Thi V. (Hai Phong) who has a relationship with a Mr Robert via facebook. In early August 2015, Rober transferred a package to Ms V. which was valued at over 100 million VND from England to Vietnam.

However, to get the goods, Ms. V. had to pay an amount of over 10 million VND to the forwarding agents and regularly contacted a number of a person who pretended to be the forwarding agent and pay in the UK by email and in Vietnam via phone number 01635941xxx and 0912572xxx for procedures guidance.

In August 15^th 2015, Ms. V received an email from a person as follows: the shipment had been checked via scanner and detected an amount of money (about 280.000 British Pounds). However, the subject declared to Customs that the amount of money in the package was just 180,000 British Pounds. They requested Ms.V to pay tax by the amount of 2,650 British Pounds (equivalent to over 91 million VND) if not, the package will be inspected through scanner by Customs. The person requested her to transfer money and payment receipt in order to attach to the package.

Furthermore, the person suggested Ms. V transfer money directly to the account 200551289 at ACB bank, the beneficiary is Trinh Thi Kim Dung and account 1321000017455 at BIDV bank HCMC, with the beneficiary is Le Thi Ngoc Han.

In addition, to gain trust from Ms. V, they also sent to her a tax notice with logo of Vietnam Customs. They write in English and translated into Vietnamese via google translation systems on the internet.

Another similar case, Ms. Nguyen Lam A. (Song Cong-Thai Nguyen) has paid more than 11 million VND for the express package from Britain to Vietnam through account number: 202 687 809 Long An ACB Bank, the beneficiary is Tran Thi Tuyen. The forwarding agents also ask Ms. A to pay an amount of $US 2,500 due to the package contain .

In fact, theses above cases are absolutely wrong. From the information collection and analysis, the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department (General Department of Customs) asserts, this is a well-organized line which frauds the express carriage of goods from abroad. The people are foreigners who collude with Vietnamese persons to pretend to be staff from a forwarding agent, Customs officers and airport staff. They phone the victim and said that the shipments from foreign countries are being held at the airport and ask the victim to pay courier charges, taxes to get new goods. The people also provide a Vietnamese bank account number to request remittance. When the victim paid into these accounts, the people disappear.

Currently, with a variety of smart phones, easy access to social networks-this is fertile ground for criminal intruders. Foreigners who abuse the trust of Vietnamese women and promise valuable gifts and large sums, then appropriate hundreds of millions.More sophisticated, foreign people fake shipping bills, purchase orders, take pictures and send to the victim to create trust.

The Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department (General Department of Customs) has warned of the above tricks and suggests caution to people when receiving calls and text messages like the above case. People should immediately notify the authorities (Customs, police) in case of doubt. Do not handle it yourself because you will be involved in criminal fraud; detect and immediately notify the relevant authorities of suspicious people related to this criminal activity.