A number of email addresses that impersonate the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), and are used for stealing customer payments, were identified by the mobile network provider Vinaphone on Wednesday.

A customer talks to a VNPT staff member. 

Representatives from Vinaphone said they had received reports from customers about fake phone calls, emails and text messages that claimed to be coming from its parent company, VNPT, and invited customers to register for new services and pay overdue phone bills.

The impersonators used emails, such as kimngan.cks.@gmail.com, hotrokekhai.tv1@gmail.com, dangky.vdconline@gmail.com, kekhaihotro.cks@gmail.com, as well as fake domains such as vnpt-bhxh.com and Vinaphone’s logo, to trick customers into registering and extending their use of the digital signature authentication service (VNPT-CA) and conduct electronic social insurance transactions (VNPT-BHXH), the company said.

They also impersonated staff members of provincial and municipal Vinaphone agencies, as well as the VNPT switchboard to fabricate contracts, bills, as well as requests for phone bill payments and contract extensions from customers.

Vinaphone said their authentic email addresses always end with …@vnpt.vn and are not public emails that registered with Yahoo and Gmail.

Additionally, the network operator does not use any form of automatic recordings to remind customers of overdue bills, it said. 

Customers receiving suspicious reminders should contact VNPT customer service at 800126 for clarification, it added. 

VNS