October 13, 2005
Plague of fraudulent banking text messages breaks out in Beijing
Interfax China reports that the Beijing Security Bureau received reports of 1,265 cases of fraud committed by SMS during the National Day holidays from September 30 to October 7.
"Dozens of handset users were deceived and the biggest reported loss $ 38,414.
The fraudulent text messages told the handset user that they had spent a certain amount of money in shopping malls, and left a phone number for inquiries. When the user called, a fraudster posing as a bank official asked the user for his bank card number and password.
To prevent customers from being cheated, some banks have emailed or sent short messages to their customers to notify them of the correct SMS service number used by the banks. The Beijing public security bureau also cooperates with Beijing Unicom, a subsidiary of China Unicom, to send out warnings via text messages to handset users."
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