Woman ignores police as scammer strikes
Print Edition
AFTER one and a half hours of persuasion failed to convince a 20-year-old woman that she was talking online to a scammer, police had to break into her apartment to prevent her from eventually losing her money.
The drama occurred on Monday evening in a residential complex on Xiangyin Road, Wujiaochang Town.
The woman, surnamed Liu, is a university student from Hubei Province who is currently working as an intern at a company in Shanghai.
Liu got a phone call from an unknown number, seemingly from Beijing, on early Monday evening and was told that “police” suspected that her identity information had been used in a 2 million yuan (US$303,000) crime.
The scammer, sending her a short message with the picture of a “warrant” with Liu’s picture on it, asked her to pay 26,000 yuan to ensure her safety, Liu said.
“I was astonished that they knew my ID data and had my photo, and that made me wonder how my identity information was leaked,” she said. “I was somehow convinced that I was in a problem.”
Meanwhile, police at Shanghai Telecommunications and Online Fraud Squad detected that someone suspected to be a scammer was calling Liu from an overseas location, and alerted their colleagues in Yangpu District.
Police officers from Wujiaochang Town Police Station were sent to dissuade Liu from becoming a victim.
Jiang Lei was one of the police officers who arrived at Liu’s door at about 6:20pm together with residential committee officials. They knocked on the door and tried to convince her that they wanted to save her from scammers.
“For one and a half hours, there was not a sound from inside, but we knew someone was inside because a living room light was turned off in the meantime and the air conditioner was running,” Jiang said.
Locked herself in
Liu she had locked herself in because she was scared — uncertain about the intentions of the person on the phone and the people knocking on her door.
“The police came just when the scammer told me that some evil-intentioned people might come to take me away,” she recalled.
As a last resort, police got a locksmith to break into the apartment at about 7:45pm.
“She told us that it was her boyfriend on the phone,” but it was a scammer, Jiang said. “I told the scammer that I’m a policeman and I’ll have to cut them off and take his ‘girlfriend’ to the police station for investigation, and he said ‘alright’.”
Liu was still unsure if the police officers were genuine even after being brought to the police station, but then she made up her mind to reveal what had happened to her despite her phone caller warning her not to tell anyone.
“I had a clear conscience, so why shouldn’t I try my luck to tell it to people who might just be real police,” Liu said.
When everything was made clear, Liu said she learned a hard lesson.
“I had heard friends talking about telescams but never paid much attention,” she said. “I think I won’t take a stranger’s words this easily in the future especially when they’re talking absolutely nonsense.”
In an concerted effort with telecom companies and banks, the fraud squad is able to detect scammers calling potential victims. Squad members then warn the potential victims about the scam as well as freezing money transfers as soon as possible before the proceeds reach the scammers.
Since the squad began operating last July, they have prevented 97 million yuan from being transferred to scammers.
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