A victim speaks to Vietnam Television about her experience of being scammed. — Photo vtv.vn

Khánh Dương

HÀ NỘI — A bitter reality in modern Vietnamese society was exposed in a series of recent Việt Nam Television documentaries about older people in their seventies, eighties and nineties being scammed into purchasing so-called holiday ownership packages.

At first glance, the scandal appears to be sophisticated consumer fraud. But a closer look reveals something far more troubling.

Viewers were obsessed with footage of the old people clutching contracts and fighting back tears, recounting how their savings, pensions and lifelong possessions had vanished into the hands of young scammers.

What haunted me was not the deceptive sales pitches.

What haunted me was not even the staggering sums of money lost, though for retired people, the amounts were enormous. Some victims invested hundreds of millions of Vietnamese đồng, and others much more, with losses reaching as high as VNĐ20 billion.

What haunted me and, I believe, many other viewers, was the deepest vulnerability facing many older people today: loneliness and the erosion of family connections in an increasingly fast-paced society.

Many of the victims have one thing in common: they live in loneliness under different circumstances.

Young scammers take advantage of that hole to become daily visitors in the old people’s houses, peeling fruit, washing dishes, assisting in daily chores and becoming true friends – sharing moments that the elderly hardly find with their own grandchildren or children.

The holiday ownership contracts exposed in the investigation are far more than conventional timeshare tourism services.

Prospective customers are lured with free gifts, complimentary trips and invitations to luxurious seminars.

They are promised premium holiday experiences, attractive investment returns or assurances that a third party will later purchase or transfer their contracts at favourable prices.

The reality is far different.

After paying hundreds of millions of đồng, customers discover that the promised resorts exist only on paper, the buyback commitments are fictitious and recovering their money is virtually impossible.

Many victims, especially older people, are then targeted by intermediary firms claiming they can help transfer or recover the contracts. These companies continue to sell hope, persuading victims to pay additional fees and pushing some into borrowing money, mortgaging their homes or even selling their property to cover mounting debts.

But many of these victims were never chasing luxury vacations or unrealistic investment returns.

In the final chapter of their lives, they were seeking something far more basic: a chance to spend meaningful time with their children and grandchildren.

One victim was a former senior lecturer who had attended international conferences and spent several years working in Poland. She believed she would one day travel with her children and grandchildren, buy a car and enjoy the benefits promised by the five holiday ownership contracts she purchased.

Another victim was a retired public servant who appeared on screen in a modest kitchen beside an old rice cooker. The image of her lighting incense at the family altar and quietly praying to her ancestors to help recover her lost savings was perhaps one of the most haunting moments in the entire documentary series.

Then there was a woman who lost her husband in 2010. For sixteen years, she has lived alone in a house that once belonged to two people. Her children have lives of their own and stop by only occasionally on weekends. Each visit brings a shared meal, and then everyone leaves again.

Looking at these stories, one common thread is impossible to ignore.

It is not greed.

It is not ignorance.

It is not old age or cognitive decline that pushes them into deception.

We must confront a painful truth.

It is loneliness.

Loneliness takes many forms. Some people grow lonely after their children move away, some after losing a spouse. Others remain lonely even while surrounded by children and grandchildren because no one has the time to sit down and listen to them.

Loneliness is already a challenge in modern society.

For older people, however, it is often accompanied by a painful sense of no longer being needed, of being left behind, of having no one to turn to for conversation or reassurance.

And that is precisely the vulnerability the sales agents exploited.

One of the most striking scenes in the documentary involved a young salesperson named Huyền and her relationship with Tín – a former senior lecturer.

She asked simple questions.

"Has your leg pain improved?"

"Are you taking your medication regularly?"

She visited Tín’s home carrying baskets of eggs, peeled fruit for her, helped her walk to her room and, at times, even assisted her in changing clothes.

These may seem like small gestures.

Yet they were perhaps acts of care that no family member had offered in years.

Tín recalled in the documentary: "I was always happy when she came. She would sit and talk with me, cook in the kitchen and wash the dishes after we ate. Just seeing her coming and going made me happy."

Those words should give many adult children pause.

How long has it been since we asked our mothers whether their aching legs were feeling better?

How long has it been since we peeled fruit for our fathers?

How long has it been since we washed the dishes after sharing a meal with our grandparents?

These are tiny acts, almost insignificant on their own. Yet in these cases, it was not family members who performed them. It was a salesperson selling holiday contracts.

Only later, after collecting billions of đồng from elderly customers, did the affectionate greetings, gifts of fruit, lucky money envelopes and expressions of filial devotion disappear along with the money.

Old age does not necessarily require luxury homes or expensive cars.

What many older people need most is someone willing to listen to stories about an aching knee, a favourite dish their late spouse used to cook, or something amusing a grandchild said yesterday.

Fighting loneliness

According to official data released in 2021, about 4.3 million people in Việt Nam aged 60 and above either lived alone or lived only with children under the age of 15, placing them among the groups most in need of care and support.

Of that number, an estimated 200,000 elderly people had no family members or caregivers to rely on.

Five years later, that number has almost certainly grown.

And that figure reflects only those who live alone. The number of elderly people living with loneliness is undoubtedly much larger.

Last year, Party General Secretary and President Tô Lâm highlighted a reality familiar to many Vietnamese families: people in their seventies and eighties often spend most of their time at home, as their children and grandchildren are away at work or school. As a result, they may experience loneliness and have limited opportunities for physical activity.

He called for stronger efforts to support older people and to "combat loneliness" among the elderly.

The top leader pointed to elderly day care centres for senior citizens as one promising solution.

Late last year, I visited one such centre operated by a private company, while reporting a feature story.

The elderly men and women there participated in physical exercises, chatted with friends, received health monitoring and, above all, appeared genuinely at ease.

I hope more centres like this can reach every village and every community across Việt Nam with affordable or assisted investment from the State.

I hope older people will not only receive better physical and mental care, but also gain the skills needed to protect themselves from increasingly sophisticated scams.

We equip our parents with smartphones and digital devices, yet too often fail to give them something far more valuable: our time and attention.

The strongest shield protecting elderly people from financial fraud, technological deception or psychological manipulation is not constant suspicion.

It is not extreme vigilance. It is the warmth, companionship and reassurance that only a family can provide.

As society becomes increasingly connected through technology, the challenge is not merely teaching older people how to navigate the digital world.

It is ensuring that they do not have to navigate old age alone.

Remind yourself right now to go home, spend time with your parents, listen to their stories, tell them that they are not alone.

Because the most effective protection against loneliness is not a warning message.

It is neither a security app nor a Government campaign.

It is family. — VNS