Fraud on the rise, police warn public to beware
THE Minhang police recently solved a fraud case, helping the victim recover 200,000 yuan (US$32,654). The victim, whom police identified only by the surname Li, had reported that he accidentally transferred the money for a client to an unknown account.
It wasn’t quite an accident. Li’s wife was talking to the client about the payment, and received a text message saying: “Please transfer the money to this account.” It was signed Zhao, which was the name of the client, so the wife assumed nothing was wrong.
However, the text sender turned out not to be the client. When the real customer sent the account again to Li to be paid, he called police immediately.
Police forced the bank to freeze the suspect’s account immediately, but the freeze could last for only five days.
With information provided by the bank, the police tracked the account to a student at a college in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province.
The phony Zhao, when contacted, said he knew nothing about the origin of the money transfer, but said he had lost his identity certificate twice. The police concluded that a swindler had falsely used Zhao’s identity to open accounts for scams. Zhao was told to withdraw Zhao’s deposit from the account and return the money.
The whereabouts of the swindler are still being sought.
Police said a rash of new phone scams have mushroomed recently and people need to be aware of irregularities. One of the new frauds targets people using their bosses’ identification information.
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