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April 28, 2016

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Tech boss complains of phishing scams

THE chairman and chief executive of smartphone-maker Xiaomi took to microblogging site Weibo on Tuesday to complain about the rising problem of telecom scams.

Billionaire Lei Jun posted screenshots of messages he said he had received over the past month.

One of them read: “Dear customer, your mobile banking service will expire tomorrow. Please log on to (the site) for verification.”

“Text message scams are so rampant. I just received another one. Everybody be careful!” Lei said.

The businessman has more than 13 million Weibo followers, so his post drew thousands of comments.

“I have a friend who was cheated out of 200,000 yuan (US$30,800),” a person wrote.

Others asked whether the IT mogul could do anything to stop the fraudulent messages.

“Mr Lei, can you make a smartphone that can detect all these scams?” another person asked.

Lei’s industry peers, meanwhile, used the opportunity to poke fun at him and promote their own brands.

“When it comes to detecting phishing messages, 360 is the expert. Mr Lei should communicate with us more often,” wrote Zhou Hongyi, chairman of Internet security firm Qihoo 360.

“I suggest you switch to Huawei smartphones, and these scams won’t bother you any more,” said product manager Li Xiaolong from Huawei Technologies, one of Xiaomi’s rivals.

Phishing text messages and phone scams have long plagued Chinese smartphone users. They continue to swindle billions of yuan from victims every year.

In a recent case, 62 people were arrested on suspicion of cheating mobile phone users out of 117 million yuan in southwest China’s Guizhou Province. It is believed to be the biggest telecom fraud ever in China.




 

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