https://nz.yahoo.com/news/thai-cops-bust-3-million-062007779.html
I story after news story, about Taiwanese arrested for fraud (mostly via phone), seems like in the 1,000’s within the past year. Anyone know why so many people are part of this, as most are not arrested, the number of people doing must be much more than reported (which is already a lot!)
Because the Taiwan government cannot seem to manage to develop enough jobs with a decent salary. So people go elsewhere and do other things to survive.
I’m disturbed that you think it’s a governments job to provide jobs…
It’s not the government’s job to provide jobs. It’s the government’s job to develop policies and environment that is conducive to job development.
What I wonder is why choose a life of crime, there are other job choices. You do have other choices such as working holiday in Aussie and New Zealand which pay well by Taiwan standards (NT$500 hour+) such as farm work or other low skill jobs, as well other jobs. I always thought Taiwan as a safe place with very little crime and criminals, but these new reports make me wonder if there is more criminals than I thought or some other reason these people choose a life of crime.
Classic misconception of expats living in a separate language and culture bubble than the locals.
Taiwan is rife with crime. Organized crime even affects the political process, which is why one the Tsai government’s first actions was ordering a crack-down on gambling and drugs to cut off the source of funding for the gangs.
Agreed. There are a large number of criminals but they tend to focus on certain areas, as can be seen, international telephone fraud is one of their big money generators but if you read the news you can see drug smuggling and production and sales are also rampant.
Taiwan seems on the surface to have little crime because it’s relatively safe (unless you drive a scooter daily). Muggings, car jackings, home break-ins, pickpockets, drive-by shootings, street brawls, random raping, gypsies, aggressive junkies, etc. are much less common than what many Westerners are used to.
Of course, there is a lot of illegal activity, but in terms of personal safety I think we can all agree it makes most Western cities look like East St. Louis.
They did this? I’ve never heard of it.
One of the reasons is that the punishment they get for fraud is quite lenient.
It doesn’t really make sense to assume that people would do working holiday as a living. It is a holiday first and foremost, and people who do that tend to spend that money on the fun there, not bringing the money back home. No foreigner would spend their whole life working at a farm in Australia.
Besides the money they get for committing fraud is way more than 500 per hour. Not that it’s a good thing.
The Tsai government and “action” is a oxymoron. Rapunzel in her tower has a busier lifestyle than President Tsai.
Yes, the involvement of gang goons working in the interests of the KMT and pro-unificationists reached a critical level last year and it was seen as a threat to Taiwan’s democracy.
Didn’t they write about this in the English language media?
This is a piece I wrote about New Taipei City’s crackdown in November last year:
That was more to do with a highly visible spate of street violence.
Taipei City has also been cracking down ahead of the Universiade.
This. Also I am 99% confident that the people who complain about peoples conduct on the MRT has never taken PT in a western city before.
There are legit Taiwan complaints, but so many of them seem to be “I’ve just left suburbia for the first time and things are different!”.
Public transportation in the US be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6NEXsy0k_8
Well it seems many Taiwanese do go on a working holiday to make and save money, and a few have no intention to return to work in Taiwan try and find a way to stay there. That being said, some also do as your mentioned as a working holiday. Also as mentioned before, it is too bad the salary is so low in Taiwan but sometimes young Taiwanese need improve their working skills to deserve a better salary (I just returned from Melbourne and NZ, and surprised a bit to see the working skills gap between Taiwan and Mainland Chinese immigrants/students in that how far behind Taiwanese are, makes me feel not well and worry about long term future in TW.
I do not wish to defend the shortcomings of the current administration, but I think the account provided by our usually astute bear misconceives how Tsai operates politically. Just because Tsai is not LOUDLY PROCLAIMING HER POSITION TO EVERYONE WHO WILL LISTEN (upper case used for effect here to convey the tone of a certain president we’ve had in the past) does not mean she is doing nothing.
For one example of how Tsai operates, see this fascinating account of the tortuous process of pension reform (a troublesome yet necessary task chucked to the wayside by previous administrations) provided by the inimitable Nathan Batto in his excellent Frozen Garlic blog:
Now back to the regularly scheduled news: Taiwanese fraudsters busted overseas and yet again extradited to China…lather, rinse, repeat…
Guy
If they know what they’re doing they can legally stay in Australia for two years in that scheme, but a surprising number of employers expect foreigners (even the legal ones) to work for less than minimum wage.
Most people spent the money at the spot on the travelling and stuff. It was popular to work in Australia and save money there when Australian dollar was very strong a few years ago, but ever since the the drop of AUD plus the change of policy on the taxation, that’s no longer an option. The number of people doing working holidays in Australia has dropped quite significantly as well, though it’s still by far the most popular WH destination as the minimum wage is by far the highest and there’s no limit on the number of applications. Other WH destinations are nowhere as popular as the pay is nowhere near as good even after AUD has gone down. For example in France or Germany you barely get paid for 1000 euro and that can barely make ends meet there. Hell with that kind of money you can barely make ends meet in Taiwan.
And even if they wanted to stay (which I believe a lot would do so if they could) it’s extremely hard to get the proper visa. They usually got an extension on their WH visa and then came back.
I can’t comment on the working ability thing, though I’m not sure how having good workers in Australia is a positive for China.
Taiwan is a place with very little confrontational crime. There is little worry about being murdered, raped, mugged, robbed or even pickpocketed (which is not to say these things don;t happen, because they do).
There is a lot of fraud, corruption (both governmental and corporate), mob activity, drug smuggling/distribution, burglaries (hence the bars on the windows), etc. Little of it is encountered by us foreigners. Even phone scammers hang up when they hear a foreign voice answer (which is why I never answer in Chinese if I don’t recognize the caller’s number).
EDIT: Is the quote function no longer working?
Human nature lol.
Reminds me of some rich Taiwanese Canadian with dual nationality and real estates in both countries wondering why other Taiwanese don’t leave Taiwan for Canada.
Because most Taiwanese people don’t have rich parents to get them dual nationality and real estates in Taiwan and the other country (usually it’s the U.S., Canada, Australia, etc) and then take advantage of both sides, dodge the duties and obligations of both sides, and at the same time talk trash about both sides.
Yeah, we all know that the minimum wages in the aforementioned countries are 1.5 to 2.5 times (depending on which occupation and tax system) higher than that of Taiwan, but telling Taiwanese people to leave Taiwan really isn’t solving any problem or changing anything.