How can so many people in Taiwan get tricked into ATM scams?

[Feiren]

I thought this one was pretty good. My bank informs me when I make a purchase of over NT$5,000. One Friday afternoon, I received a message saying that I just spend NT$20,000 at Sogo, which of course I hadn’t. The message was identical to the ones I get from the bank and the number to call was very similar. Of course they timed the message for when I was very busy and didn’t have time to think about it. Fortunately, I had seen a very similar scam reported on TV the other day.

The clever thing is that if you call the number, you get charged for an expensive call. If they think you are a target, they will try to get your credit card number from you so that they can check the charge.

[plasmatron]

@Dragonbones

…the school systems here don’t seem to teach students to think for themselves. Thinking for yourself is an important ingredient in healthy skepticism, which itself is needed to avoid being suckered. So it’s at least plausible that an education system which teaches only rote memorization plays a role in this.

spot on DB… this plays a significant role I have no doubt…

however, given the fact that every single every single person on this island old enough to understand spoken language has heard of these scams N times for many, many years, forces me to have very little sympathy for those gullible/greedy enough to piss away their savings on these scams… regardless of how convincing the tricksters may be, why can people not get it into their heads that any unsolicited phone call asking for big money in a hurry IS ALWAYS a scam… not sometimes, not maybe, always a scam… any miraculous bank service calls asking to verify a purchase by calling some mystery number and telling them your account details?.. it’s always a scam… kidnapped family member?.. it’s always a scam…

how on earth could anyone old enough to have savings and understand news reports not discuss the issue with their family members / close friends and have an understanding that they will never respond to requests for money over the phone… saying to your family members “if you really need money, come and see me in person and we’ll talk, but don’t call… you know why…” and the problem is 99.9% solved… for the extra 0.1% the more cloak and dagger minded could agree on a password or code of sorts that scammers could never know… for fishy calls from the “bank” just teach people to say “I’ll come down to the branch in person later…” same goes for kidnappings… every possible variation on the themes has been paraded throught the media on countless occasions, for years, how does anyone not recognise the obvious format of the scams?..

Of course for the reasons Dragonbones, Lord Lucan and others have pointed out above the majority of people don’t have the basic mental dexterity to think this up by themselves, so the govt. should really be doing a lot more… this isn’t some shadowy underworld intrigue who’s methods are deviously intangible to the average citizen, it’s a crude confidence scam, the simple mechanics of which are known to every man woman and child on the island … there really is no excuse for the govt. not paying for “It’s always a scam” adverts before every movie, in place of the loan shark ads the cut into cable commercials, on the side of busses, on your phone bill etc. etc.

[redwagon]

One of my local friends got so fed up with the calls he set up his voicemail with a message that goes on in an automated receptionist type voice (in Mandarin)…

“Hello and thanks for calling 09XXXXXXXX. If you’ve kidnapped one of my family for ransom, please press 1. If you’re the bank warning me about a large transaction on my credit card, please press 2. If you’re one of my kids needingmoney for an accident or debt settlement, please press 3. If you’re calling to ask about my driving or spending habits please press 4. For other scams please press 0. An operator will come on the line shortly to curse you in person”.

Another guy I know just has a message that says he doesn’t have any family, any money or any credit cards, and “if you have kidnapped my ex-wife please go right ahead and kill the bitch, since she’s the reason I’m so broke and lonely”.

[Traveller]

@plasmatron

…why can people not get it into their heads that any unsolicited phone call asking for big money in a hurry IS ALWAYS a scam… not sometimes, not maybe, always a scam… any miraculous bank service calls asking to verify a purchase?.. it’s always a scam… kidnapped family member?.. it’s always a scam…

Plasmatron, whilst in essence i would agree for the vast majority of the local population, it is not a scam 100% of the time for everyone, i have received calls from my bank when i made large unexpected purchases verifying that it was me making the purchase and i know of one local that genuinely had one of their kids kidnapped, he had already received a call from the school before getting one from ther kidnappers.

[plasmatron]

sure, but that’s pretty much at the heart of the problem… the general populace are all too keen to cling to this one in a million “this time it’s really true” paranoia, whereas if a proper campaign of “it’s always a scam” were entrenched into the mindset of the masses, not only would the frequency of such attempted scams fall dramatically, but the success rate would drop to almost zero and the knuckle dragging thugs who run these ruses as well as those who carry out the minuscule number of actual abductions etc. would move onto other illicit activities, like running for government office perhaps… hardly seems worth exposing the dimwitted masses to this kind of life wrecking wholesale fraud in the name of shaving a couple of hours response time off the one case in a million that is genuine…

[Dangermouse]

According to the people at the bank, the accounts many of these people use are made using real ID numbers, real names, fake addresses. Rarely any way to track the perpetrators, only the money.

But the police have access to records, ID numbers and Electoral roles which can be tied into health cards, other bank accounts, places of employment and addresses associated with these. It should be incredibly easy to follow up on these and make a connexion to someone, somewhere and pretty much eliminate this kind of electronic crime.

It’s a simple case of:

Left Hand: “Hi”
Right Hand: “WTF?”

[gaboman]

Dangermouse, the IDs and names are of other people, not the people who open the accounts. Basically it’s a case of mass identity theft (with some of these people having 50…100…200 accounts in various names). That’s why people who photocopy their IDs always write for what purpose the photocopy is for over their information.

Give a bank a picture ID with a name and the corresponding ID number, but with a different photo, and nobody could tell the difference.

(Edit: Sorry, I should have made myself clearer in the first place)

I do agree that it shouldn’t be that hard to stop it from happening, though.

[cranky_laowai]

@Omniloquacious

My wife is a smart, well educated woman, but she was suckered by those bastards… The police were very sympathetic and helpful, and several of them worked busily on their computers for a couple of hours tracing the telephone number and bank account, and so on. We were greatly surprised and highly impressed when, several months later, an official letter arrived informing my wife that NT$90,000 of her money had been tracked to a bank account in Kaohsiung and was available to be remitted back to her. Very good work indeed by the local boys in blue!

It’s good to hear that not all cops in Taiwan are useless.

I know a woman (well educated and generally not a pushover) who was cheated through an ATM “refund” scam. When she finally figured out what had happened, she went to the police. They just told her, “What do you expect us to do about it? We’ve told you people that some people like to cheat others.” :fume:

[Lord_Lucan]

@cranky laowai

I know a woman (well educated and generally not a pushover) who was cheated through an ATM “refund” scam. When she finally figured out what had happened, she went to the police. They just told her, “What do you expect us to do about it? We’ve told you people that some people like to cheat others.” :fume:

Pretty much what a Taiwanese friend of mine was told. I was there at the time. The police weren’t in the slightest bit interested. Trace the call? Get the woman to ring back while they broke into the line? No. Come into the police station next week and make a report.

[quote=“redwagon”]One of my local friends got so fed up with the calls he set up his voicemail with a message that goes on in an automated receptionist type voice (in Mandarin)…

“Hello and thanks for calling 09XXXXXXXX. If you’ve kidnapped one of my family for ransom, please press 1. If you’re the bank warning me about a large transaction on my credit card, please press 2. If you’re one of my kids needingmoney for an accident or debt settlement, please press 3. If you’re calling to ask about my driving or spending habits please press 4. For other scams please press 0. An operator will come on the line shortly to curse you in person”.

Another guy I know just has a message that says he doesn’t have any family, any money or any credit cards, and “if you have kidnapped my ex-wife please go right ahead and kill the bitch, since she’s the reason I’m so broke and lonely”. [/quote]

Fantastic! I would love to get that on my phone!

[sandman]

The police weren’t in the slightest bit interested. Trace the call? Get the woman to ring back while they broke into the line? No. Come into the police station next week and make a report.

When my wife got scammed, they were quite the opposite. They spent about two hours making reports, getting my wife to call them back while they tried to trace the call, followed up at least three times over the following couple of weeks with personal visits to our home to discuss what they were doing and giving us tips on how to maximise their chances of tracing the perps in case of future attempts.
They failed to get anywhere, ultimately, but I can attest that a good number of police man-hours were spent on it. And they were taking it seriously.

[the_chief]

@sandman

[quote]The police weren’t in the slightest bit interested. Trace the call? Get the woman to ring back while they broke into the line? No. Come into the police station next week and make a report.

When my wife got scammed, they were quite the opposite. They spent about two hours making reports, getting my wife to call them back while they tried to trace the call, followed up at least three times over the following couple of weeks with personal visits to our home to discuss what they were doing and giving us tips on how to maximise their chances of tracing the perps in case of future attempts.
They failed to get anywhere, ultimately, but I can attest that a good number of police man-hours were spent on it. And they were taking it seriously.[/quote]

Veering off T here, but that sounds a lot more like my cops, too.
Sometimes when I read stuff on here, I think we have completely different police departments.

[Lord_Lucan]

@sandman

[quote]The police weren’t in the slightest bit interested. Trace the call? Get the woman to ring back while they broke into the line? No. Come into the police station next week and make a report.

When my wife got scammed, they were quite the opposite. They spent about two hours making reports, getting my wife to call them back while they tried to trace the call, followed up at least three times over the following couple of weeks with personal visits to our home to discuss what they were doing and giving us tips on how to maximise their chances of tracing the perps in case of future attempts.
They failed to get anywhere, ultimately, but I can attest that a good number of police man-hours were spent on it. And they were taking it seriously.[/quote]

For those of us following the It’s OK to Lie if You’re Chinese/Taiwanese thread: I noticed that my friends reaction to the police lack of interest was one of resignation.

This is another area where a government would take the lead.

[almas_john]

The Sandboy wrote [quote]When my wife got scammed, they were quite the opposite. They spent about two hours making reports, getting my wife to call them back while they tried to trace the call, followed up at least three times over the following couple of weeks with personal visits to our home to discuss what they were doing and giving us tips on how to maximise their chances of tracing the perps in case of future attempts.
They failed to get anywhere, ultimately, but I can attest that a good number of police man-hours were spent on it. And they were taking it seriously.[/quote]
Could be because your wife is a babe.
Thankfully I could never fall victim to a scam artist because I have no money to steal; all my cash is pretty much used to pay off bills, and the rest goes into liquid assets.