New Cheating Scam Making the Rounds

Encountered a new one today involving an online puchase. The lady called to inform us that we had purchased something online a while back and there was a problem. We had transferred money from one of my accounts to the seller, whom we had only dealt with once, to purchase some pants.

The lady told us that there was a problem -- the money we had sent to the account -- $1,900 -- would be downloaded from that account each month. She had all our information -- address, what we had purchased, my name in Chinese, my wife's name, our home phone number, and other information. Much of this information is available on the net, and of course, the transaction is publicly recorded on Yahoo.

She opened the conversation like a consumer relations rep, asking if the pants fit. Then she said that my wife had accidentally selected "monthly payment" when she had transferred money to the account, and that each month the money would be transferred to that account. She wanted my wife to run into town -- "how far are you from the post office?" -- and soon -- "I get off work at five, and I'll be waiting for you." Better move fast, she advised, as the bank was going to take out money tonight.

Keeping the pressure up, the woman told my wife she needed the number from the receipt, the "hsu hau", the transaction number. The whole idea was to get my wife in front of the ATM machine with the phone in hand and in a state of confused nervousness about losing money each month. Once there, the scammers would then use the urgency of the issue to convince my wife to give up her PIN number and other information needed to access the account. And then bye-bye to your cash.

My wife, a longtime businesswoman, is reflexively suspicious, since scams are common in Taiwan and we constantly run into them, and after a few minutes of discussion, we decided we were being scammed. But there must be many people who have fallen for this one. There is little the police can do; you can't report the information because the scammers have your address and phone number, and can easily get revenge if they are investigated and broken up. And of course, the scammers are often based in China where they cannot be reached....

Despite his bad luck, however, Ho's group successfully cheated people out of more than NT$20 million (NT$610, 350) before he was caught and charged with fraud.

In Kaohsiung, police apprehended Chen Chia-teh (陳佳德) and four others on charges of defrauding over NT$100 million from more than 100 victims, and confiscated 243 doctored ID cards and driver's licenses, 99 cash cards, fake bank accounts and NT$1.05 million in cash.

Police said one of the victims had been duped into paying the ring more than NT$1 million.

The suspects worked with other ring members in China, whose job was to make threatening phone calls to prospective Taiwanese victims while the Taiwanese members, so-called "errand boys and girls," were responsible for collecting and transmitting the illicit gains.

Police investigators said an "errand boy" would get 2.8 percent of the haul. For example, if he collected and remitted NT$20 million per month, he would enjoy a "monthly income" of more than NT$500,000, with the rest of the NT$20 million pocketed by the ringleaders in China.

The Taipei Times reported on another such ring in November:

Kaohsiung police said yesterday they have cracked a fraud ring involving a local family that had cooperated with Chinese criminals to deceive close to 1,000 people into paying them almost NT$100 million over the past few years.

The city's criminal police unit said they have arrested Tsai Ming-hsiao (蔡明孝) and eight others on charges of forgery and fraud and seized more than NT$1 million in cash, 15 mobile phones, six Easycards, 71 bank and postal office accounts, 90 cash cards, two personal computers, forged chops and drugs.

A police spokesman said the ring members sent letters in the name of Kaohsiung District Court prosecutors Lin Yung-fu (林永富) and Chung Chung-hsiao (鍾忠孝) warning the recipients that their bank accounts had been frozen.

The suspects also allegedly called parents in the name of their children's teachers, saying their kids had been kidnapped in school.

The mail recipients and parents were then induced into divulging the personal identification numbers of their cash cards and bank accounts to the suspects.

Ring leader Tsai would then ring up members to go to a certain ATM to withdraw the cash and deposit it into another account controlled by Tsai's Chinese counterpart named "Doggie."

As I said, the whole idea is to get you in front of an ATM in an agitated state where you are not thinking clearly. Fortunately, with the exception of marriage proposals, my wife is practically immune to scams....

UPDATE: As I was composing this, the scammers called again! I told them my wife went out. They asked for her cell number. I told them I didn't know, and then thanked them and hung up.

UPDATE II: My wife went to the Yahoo site and read all the emails on the seller's site; other people reported the same scam today. Note this posting:

意見︰褲褲已經收到好幾個月了....今天竟然有一個賣家打電話給我....我轉的1950進入分期付款條約....他是詐騙集團的吧@@ (2007-01-05 19:52) (最近期的)

I purchased the pants several months ago....today out of the blue I got a seller's phone call. I transferred $1950....[snipped]...this is from a scammer.

Today's date on it....

[Taiwan] [scams]