A new style of fraud, using mobile phone SMS messages to pretend to be bank reconciliation, to cheat people out of their bank deposits, has surfaced in Zhejiang Province and appears to be spreading outward rapidly. The Public Security Agency of Zhejiang Province has issued an urgent warning to remind people to raise their wariness and prevent this type of crime from happening.
"Dear Customer, you have spent XXX yuan on X month X date in Shanghai's Trust-Mart, please confirm this amount with the ICBC bank. If there is any error please call 021-51023052." If you receive such an SMS message on your mobile phone, please do not believe its authenticity. Recently, a 38-year old Miss Li of Xinqiao Town, Wenzhou received such a message. Confused, she immediately called the phone number in the SMS message to explain that she did not make that expenditure in Shanghai and the other party on the phone immediately gave her two fake phone numbers for the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau and the China Unionpay Administration Bureau and told the victim that her account has been targeted by a criminal enterprise and requested that she immediately transfer the money in her account to a safe account. This way, Miss Li's 530,000 yuan (US$65,300) vanished.
Similar types of crimes have happened quite a few times. Police said that this type of fraud was quite new but very harmful to society and could spread to many other places. Police reminded people to raise their wariness to prevent such types of crimes from happening.
(Chinanews.cn July 22, 2005)
