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Opinion
Patrick Boehler
Patrick Boehler
Scammers seek to exploit Yaan disaster in phone con
With the speed rescuers have reached out to the Sichuan earthquake victims, con artists have seized the opportunity to exploit the outpouring of grief and make extra cash.
"Please share this message. A girl named Xu Min, 21 years old, is asked to hurry back to Shuicheng county hospital in Yaan," one text message read. "Her mother is severely wounded, wants to see her one last time."
Recipients of the message wanting to help were directed to a hotline that would charge them exorbitant fees. A report of the scam by the China News Service did not say how much the swindlers would make off every well-meaning caller.
Police in Jiangning, in eastern China's Jiangsu province, said that given Shuicheng is not in Sichuan province, but Guizhou, the text-message scam was not very sophisticated.
The same phone number has appeared in other fraudulent text messages related to earthquake relief efforts. One pretended to be the Chinese Red Cross, which is struggling to deal with its own reputational problems after the Guo Meimei scandal last year.
“Mum, Dad, I've been sent to help in the earthquake rescue efforts, this is a great opportunity," one text message read. "Please transfer 5,000 yuan [HK$6,200] to my bank account."
Over the last weeks, phone scammers had already exploited fears over the H7N9 avian flu outbreak, which has so far claimed 20 lives in China. Police in Jiangsu said they dealt with seven types of fraudsters banking on H7N9.
Police in Anshan, in northern China's Liaoning province, followed up on a warning that scammers were pretending to be hospital staff. In a twist to the classic "Your child has had an accident" scam, they called parents to ask for an emergency transfer for hospital fees for children supposedly quarantined for bird flu.
Fraudsters also called schools pretending to be provincial educational officials and ordering them to transfer funds for nonexistent H7N9 manuals.
At least 10 people have been arrested over the last weeks for spreading rumours on H7N9 on the QQ chatting platform and on weibo microblogs.
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