Stricter punishment of swindlers needed
Rep. Seo Young-kyo of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea renewed her call Monday for the government to crack down on resurgent voice phishing fraud.
At a National Assembly session, Seo cited the recent example of an old man who sent his entire retirement payment of 900 million won ($84,200) to a phishing ring. She urged ranking police and financial officials to come up with steps to eradicate such financial scams.
The officials replied they would do their best to root out fraudsters. However, their perfunctory answer was more than regrettable given increasingly intelligent and sophisticated criminal techniques.
The 70-something victim, for instance, averted a suspicious bank clerk, saying he was "sending business funds to a relative," as told to do by a culprit on the phone. Also, a woman in her 20s remitted 800 million won to a man impersonating a prosecutor. She soon realized it was a voice phishing scam and reported it to the police, only to find the suspect had laundered the money via a cryptocurrency exchange and disappeared.
One might wonder how these people can still fall prey to con artists but the reality is not so simple. According to the Financial Supervisory Service, the number of voice phishing scams totaled 49,000 last year, up about 4,000 from 2016. Damage from this financial fraud also rose 49.9 billion won to 242.3 billion won over the period. The sharp increase was ascribable to the advent of new ways of fooling innocent people by, for instance, using virtual currency as a means of withdrawing money.
The most effective ways to deal with the evolving voice phishing schemes is to remain attentive and careful. The financial regulators say they will step up monitoring of these new tricks but the thieves have always been one step ahead of law enforcement. Potential victims should remember once again: Any and all people who ask them to send money over the phone are fraudsters.
Still, the time has also long past for the authorities to come up with far more effective steps to prevent such crimes, and much stricter punishment for the swindlers.
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