Chinese scammers are still able to carry on with their telecommunications fraud by breaking through the system’s costly Maginot Line, the so-called “strictest ever real-name registration for mobile users”. But how?
According to Chinese authorities, Telecom fraud in China in 2015 alone amounted to over 590,000 cases, and a total economic loss of RMB 22.2 billion (USD 3.3 billion). In response real-name registration was introduced.
But nothing is difficult to the man who will try. Scammers can go on with their telecom frauds with other people’s identity information bought online at low prices, according to a report published by Chinese newspaper 21st Century Business Herald on Friday.
The report said that scammers can buy people’s real identity card information on China’s largest e-commerce platform, Taobao, and from sellers on social networks including WeChat and QQ. In this way, they are able to use these real ID information to register mobile phone numbers for their telecom fraud.
Recent telecom fraud cases in the Chinese East coast city of Linyi led to the death of two students.
On August 19, 18-year-old Xu Yuyu was swindled by a telecom fraudster out of RMB 9,900. This money was meant to be used as her college tuition. Xu then got a heart attack and died two days later. This has sparked a heated discussion on China’s social media. Here are some comments from Weibo:
“How did the fraudster know she’s going to enter college? How did the fraudster even know she had applied for a student loan? I want the fraudsters as well as their accomplices brought to justice!”
–Liuyan Qingyan
“(The fault is) mainly on the network operators. What can’t they find or shield, if only they were serious about it? It’s all just about the profits.”
–Paofan Dage
“Those who sell individual information should get severe punishment.”
–Xiaoyanjing
Before people could recover from the shocking news, a sophomore Song Zhenning also died from heart attack after he was swindled out of RMB 2,000 on Tuesday.
(Top photo from Djwb.wuhunews.cn)
