Focus
Don't fall for a bogus call - even from the 'police'
By Hong Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-19 07:55
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 Hong Ying has just experienced a telephone fraud case. Wu Ping/ For China Daily |
One day, my landline phone rang at 8:04 am and a voice with a standard Beijing accent spoke.
"This is Tietong Telecommunication Company. You have 2,568 yuan due for payment on your phone bill. If you do not pay it today, we will disconnect your line. Any questions please press 9."
I pressed 9 and a female operator said I was not in debt because of my own landline but because of another phone in Shenzhen that was attached to mine.
I felt odd and asked for details. She provided me with the phone number, an address and the account number of a credit card that had been used to pay bills for that phone. I told her to cancel that number but she said I had to call the police and she transferred my phone to Shenzhen 110.
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"You must provide real information while describing what happened," she said.
"You cannot tell anyone else about this, including your family, and no one is allowed to listen while I record our conversation."
I told her I was alone at home.
She said that my ID card had been used to open a credit card account and that I had been caught up in a big-money laundering case.
"Do you know a guy called Li Qiang?" she asked.
I told her I did not.
She said that Li was in jail now and that the case involved 2.61 million yuan.
"You are one of the biggest suspects," she said, before asking for my bank details and profession. She let me call Shenzhen 114 from my cell phone to confirm she was indeed calling from the police bureau. The number shown on my landline phone was the same as the Shenzhen public security bureau.
"Now you can trust me," she said.
She then transferred my phone to Wang Yucheng, the leader of the special judicial investigation group for the case.
"I need to report your situation to the prosecutor and check your bank account to see whether you are related," he said.
He gave me an account number of Industrial and Commercial bank 6222021512002451741 and the name of the prosecutor.
"Please transfer your money to the prosecutor's account for investigation," he said.
"How can I believe you?" I said and hung up.
Wang immediately called me back. "How dare you hang up the phone? If you do not cooperate, we will freeze your account for two or three years until the case ends. You will be prohibited from leaving the country."
He was threatening me but I replied: "I did not break any law."
"You are involved with a money-laundering case," he said "We can take the action now, you know."
In order to gain my trust, he let the Beijing public security bureau call me.
The number shown on my phone was 110. An officer told me to cooperate with Shenzhen police; otherwise they would take me to Shenzhen under escort.
"I will inform my local police station," I said.
"You cannot tell them. This is a secret action," the officer insisted.
I told him that I was a British citizen and said I would inform the British embassy before I did anything else.
"You do not need to. We will tell them," he said.
When I insisted, the officer asked: "What are you trying to do? You want to use your social relationship to help yourself?"
I told him I did not have time for this now because a journalist would come to interview me at 10:30.
"If you do not transfer the money now, we will arrest you in front of the journalist and people will know you are a suspect," he said.
"So I will be famous, that's good," I said and hung up.
Wang from Shenzhen called me again and berated me for a long time. I said I wanted to go to the toilet and hung up the phone again.
He called back and said: "You are not allowed to hang up. We will keep you under surveillance through the phone."
I left the phone and called the embassy and Beijing 110 from another room to tell them that I had encountered a phone fraud.
While the three swindlers spoke as if they were really police officers, they did not understand how a writer works.
All the information I gave them was fake and the only reason I kept talking to them was because I wanted to know how they cheated people so I could warn my readers not to transfer money to a stranger, whoever the person claims to be.
If you have time, you can play with them. Otherwise, just hang up the phone.
The author is a British Chinese writer.