By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
Bank accounts that have had no transactions during the past year will only be allowed to transfer 700,000 won a day, after the Financial Supervisory Service announced measures to fight increasing phishing attacks by fraudsters, Thursday.
Voice phishing, or phone scams that try to trick people into sending cash or personal information, has become a serious problem here.
Chinese gangs usually hire ethnic Koreans in China to contact potential targets. Victims are called at random by someone claiming to work for the police, postoffice, or credit card company.
They induce the victims to a nearby ATM, by telling them that their personal information has been leaked, their credit card or mail has been returned or that they have a tax return awaiting them. They may even be told that their child has been abducted.
Victims are then instructed to transfer money to the fraudsters account from the ATM. The victims are usually senior citizens or housewives who are not familiar with the machines, but even educated, professional people are deceived sometimes ― even a judge was fooled.
According to the National Policy Agency, the damages from the phone scams totaled 80.9 billion won last year, near double the 43.3 billion won in damages from last year. The losses for this year totaled 27.3 billion won as of March, increasing from 16.1 billion won in the first quarter of last year.
The financial regulator was pressed to act as some victims of the scam have committed suicide.
Measures include ID card checks for all foreigners when opening a bank account. Banks will check the validity of ID cards by using the justice ministry's information system. The regulator explained that bank accounts borrowing a foreign resident's name are often used for the scam.
Also, accounts that had no money transfers at all during the past year would only be allowed to send 700,000 won a day. ``Senior citizens and housewives, the most vulnerable to the phone scams, rarely use ATMs to transfer money,'' the regulator explained. They will be allowed to send more money only if they ask a bank clerk to expand the limit.
ATMs will also give voice warning messages regarding phone scams.