With the coming of the Spring Festival, we see an increasingly festive atmosphere. However, we still need to guard against those outlaws who infringe upon banking customers by illegal measures like phone fraud.
As learnt from Industrial Bank (IB) by the reporter on January 5, the bank successfully blocked 47 phone fraud cases in 2012, saving customers from losing about RMB 3.45 million.
“Fraudulent messages almost reach all provinces of China, and almost the mobile phones of all customers have received such messages", an officer from the Security Department of IB said, “the victims are mainly the aged, women and personnel who receive few education.”
The fraud of loan security deposit overturned
Exploiting the pressing demand of some individual business owners for loans, swindlers keep updating their phone fraud.
On a day of December, at 10:30 am, Wang Yu (pseudonym) asked Liu Yaojie, the account manager at the outlet of South Songshan Road Sub-branch of IB Zhengzhou Branch to handle personal loan. During communication with Liu Yaojie and Zuo Xiaohui, director of the outlet, Wang Yu realized that she had been almost cheated out of RMB 400,000.
The story goes as follows. Two weeks ago, Wang Yu received the call of a mysterious “Ms Tong”, who claimed that Wang Yu could apply for personal loan worth RMB 5 million only by going through very simple formalities. Then, “Ms Tong” also faxed two pieces of “Application Form of Industrial Bank for the Personal Loan of VIP Customer” and “Asset Form of Industrial Bank” with the label of “Industrial Bank” to Wang Yu, asking her to fill in relevant information and then fax them back.
Meanwhile, “Ms Tong” also required Wang Yu to apply a debit card with IB and China Everbright Bank (CEB) respectively and activate the internet transfer function. Moreover, Wang Yu was asked to deposit RMB 400,000 as the loan security into the card of CEB, then fax the deposit receipt to “Ms Tong”, and meanwhile, Wang was also asked to call the given telephone number to go through the formalities according to the voice instructions (entering such information as ID card number, account password, and mobile phone number).
After learning the situation, Zuo Xiaohui gave a warning to Wang Yu: “Why are you required to deposit the security into CEB while you are applying for a loan with IB?” Zuo suggested Wang to call the mobile phone of the so-called “Director Liu” of the other party immediately.
After the putting through the phone, Wang Yu said to “Director Liu”: “We have deposited RMB 400,000 cash into the CEB card as required by you. Then, what will we do next?” “Director Liu” said, “please take the relevant documents and apply for loan at ‘Credit Department of IB Zhengzhou Branch'”. Wang Yu asked who she should contact to handle the application. “Director Liu” said: “Your loan specialist!” When Wang Yu further asked the name of the so-called “loan specialist”, however, “Director Liu” hung up the phone. Until then, Ms Wang believed that this was a phone fraud case, and thanked Liu and Zuo again and again.
A fiction of kidnapped hostage
All Chinese people hope that his family is safe and sound, but swindlers also make use of it.
Recently, IB Nanchang Branch successfully blocked a phone fraud at the excuse of kidnapping hostage, helping a customer to save the economic loss of RMB 30,000.
In an afternoon, an elderly customer came to the outlet of Qingshanhu Sub-branch. He went to the financial manager that he was familiar with, and said that he was in urgent need of money. He insisted on cashing the wealth management products that he had purchased, and proposed that he only needed to cash RMB 30,000 with his wealth management products worth RMB 50,000. With rich experience in preventing various phone fraud cases, the financial manager concluded that the senior citizen might encounter a phone fraud. According to the procedure of the bank for preventing phone fraud, the financial manager tried to learn the purpose of the elder in withdrawing money, but he was always reluctant to tell the financial manager.
Seeing that it was of no avail to persuading him not to withdraw money, the financial manager tried to let his family member know the situation, and lent a mobile phone to the senior citizen to call his son so that he could discuss the matter regarding raising money with his son. Then, the elder left the outlet. In consideration of ensuring the safety of customer's deposits, the financial manager dialed the phone of the elder's son again, reminding him to ask his father about the purpose of withdrawing money by all means, lest his father was cheated.
On the next day, the thing turned out to be a fraud. This financial manager received the call of the elder and his son to express their gratitude respectively. As learnt by the financial manager, the senior citizen received a call, in which one person told that his nephew was kidnapped. The “kidnapper” asked the elder for an amount of ransom of RMB 30,000, and required him to remit the money immediately. Furthermore, the “kidnapper” threatened the senior citizen not to tell anyone else or report to the police. Otherwise, his nephew might be killed. After returning home from the bank, the senior citizen finally got into contact with his nephew, affirming that it was a fraud.
In recent years, phone fraud has become a main fraud type, an officer from the Security Department of IB indicates. The main means that outlaws employ are to send short message to non-specific social groups with batch SMS transmitter, falsify various identities and excuses to cheat victims of ID card numbers, bank card numbers, passwords, or directly require remittance or transfer to swindle money and property.
During the day-to-day work, the Security Department of IB has collected and studied the typical cases of all banks in a timely manner and issued documents to all branches for them to prevent, inspect and block various phone fraud cases based on the characteristics of such cases. Meanwhile, the department has kept informing the features of typical cases across the whole bank on a monthly basis, promoted and exchanged the prevention experience of some branches inside the bank, so as to prevent customers from losing money.