More than 80 percent of people would do nothing after receiving a call from a scammer, a survey conducted by the National Communications Commission (NCC) showed.
The NCC’s “Telecom Market Report” for last year surveyed the experiences of Taiwanese regarding telecom and Internet fraud.
More than 60 percent of respondents said that they had encountered scams via telephone or the Internet, the survey showed.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Scams via mobile phone made up the largest proportion at about 80 percent, followed by landline calls and instant messages, it showed.
People have become used to telecom and Internet fraud, but they respond passively to scam calls and messages, the report said.
More than 80 percent of respondents would “hang up the phone or do nothing,” while nearly 20 percent said they would “warn friends and family,” the survey showed.
Only 9.2 percent said that they would call the 165 anti-fraud hotline, while 2.6 percent said they would call 110 or report the situation to police, it showed.
Scammers most commonly seek to impersonate social accounts to trick people into buying game cards from convenience stores or steal transaction information from online shopping platforms and impersonate a customer service agent to deceive people into transferring money to a bank account they control, the NCC said.
Other tactics include manipulating people on dating apps and extorting them, it added.
Fraud rings tend to use scam calls or messages to invite people to join an online group or install an investment app with promises of high returns on, it said.
There were 37,823 incidents of fraud reported last year, an increase of 8,314 incidents, or 28.17 percent, from a year earlier, National Police Agency data showed.
That figure included an increase of 5,233 incidents of investment fraud, the police data showed.
A woman surnamed Wang (王) yesterday said that she frequently receives suspicious messages offering investment opportunities, which she ignores, as reporting cases via the 165 hotline or to police is time-consuming.
A man surnamed Hu (胡) said that he was scammed, but as several days had passed since he had transferred money, he did not report the case, as he believed that the police would not be able to help.
Ming Chuan University professor of criminal justice Wang Po-chi (王伯頎) earlier this week said that Taiwanese tend to do nothing when they are victimized by fraud out of the fear of being laughed at, or being labeled “greedy” or “foolish.”
Going through the experience usually involves personal issues and financial investments, Wang said.
Moreover, police might not know about a new fraud tactic until a case is reported, he said.
People who receive scam calls or messages should report the case to the police otherwise fraud attempts would become more rampant, as the risk is low, he added.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS