Scammers 'keeping up with technology': police

[freemexy]

Scammers 'keeping up with technology': police

Local police warn people in need of money to be careful with QR codes and links sent to them by so-called finance company clerks following their loan applications, officers said on Tuesday.To get more Pudong New Area news, you can visit shine news official website.

According to Shanghai police, they are now probing a series of loan scams in which scammers cheated money from local victims by pretending to offer them loans and then asking for money for security deposits or guarantees.

In one case, a restaurant owner in the Pudong New Area called police on December 1 last year and told them he was cheated out of more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,492) after trying to apply for a loan online.

The man, surnamed Wang, said due to the restaurant's poor business performance, he considered borrowing money from online loan providers for investment to support his business. He registered on an online loan platform and made an application.

Later he received a call from someone who claimed to be a staff member for the platform. The person told Wang that he was not qualified for loan applications and asked him to do a simple "test" to guarantee his repayment ability. Wang then scanned the QR code sent by the person twice and transferred some 5,000 yuan to the account. However, the money was never returned to him after the "test" and he soon received a message of another 4,500-yuan payment taken from his own bank account. He then noticed that it was a trap and reported it to police, who helped him to freeze his bank account.

Police said that scammers are always "keeping pace with technical innovation" and using the latest technologies in their scams.

"In the past, scammers asked victims to transfer money at ATM machines. But now under new rules, the transferred money will go to their account the next day and if a scam is detected, the bank can withdraw the transfer and they will never receive the money," said an officer with the criminal police.

"So now they use third party payment methods like WeChat and Alipay, through which they can get the money instantly and make it harder for police to trace their accounts."