One day, 150,000 won was deposited into the account… Something unimaginable happened

2023-09-18 09:28:18

finance

Entered 2023.09.18 18:28 Modified 2023.09.18 22:14 Ground A25

Targeting exposed account numbers… ‘Bank account threats’ taking advantage of loopholes in the law

“Give me money to close the account.”
Phishing warning for small business owners

Report damage after sending ‘suspicious money’
How to freeze criminal accounts
Threats to demand money like ransomware

It takes 3 to 4 months to resolve fraudulent accounts.
The bill has been languishing in the National Assembly for over 6 months

The photo has nothing to do with the article. Getty Image Bank The so-called ‘passbook blackmail’ scam, which involves transferring a small amount of money and making the receiving account involved in voice phishing, making deposits and withdrawals impossible, and then extorting money and valuables in return for solving the problem, is rampant. There are a series of related crimes targeting self-employed people and small business owners who often disclose their account numbers, but financial authorities are virtually giving up on responding due to the need for law revision. The revised bill was submitted to the National Assembly last March, but has not been discussed for over six months amid political strife between the ruling and opposition parties.

○ Abuse of the ‘full payment suspension’ rule

On the 26th of last month, author Geon-soon Lim, an Eastern philosopher, received 150,000 won deposited into his bank account from an unidentified person whose name was ‘SINSA03’. Even for him, who worked as a freelance writer and received donations by disclosing his account number online, the name of the depositor, which was presumed to be a Telegram ID, was unusual. On the 30th of last month, less than a week later, he received notification from the bank that his account had been suspended.

The reason the account was suspended was because the person who sent money to writer Lim reported that his account had been victimized by voice phishing and that an unfair withdrawal had been made. Under current law, when a financial company receives an application for relief from voice phishing, it must take action to suspend payment of all money in the ‘fraudulent account’ from which the money was transferred. Author Lim’s account was used fraudulently.

The person who reported writer Lim is not an actual criminal. The person who reported him is also a victim of having his account stolen by a criminal. The victim of identity theft reported that money had been unfairly withdrawn from his account, and the bank suspended payments to writer Lim’s account as quickly as possible to prevent the victim’s money from being transferred to criminals. The fraud that author Lim suffered was a new voice phishing method in which criminal A uses the money of victim B, whose identity was stolen, to suspend payment to the account of C, a third party, and is called bank account blackmail. The reason why the depositor’s name is written as a Telegram ID is to make the victim of bank account blackmail contact the fraudster directly. Once contacted, the fraudster threatens to lift the payment suspension only if you pay millions of won. In reality, the fraudster does not have the authority to lift the payment suspension, but there are many cases where some victims who do not know the law send money by ‘crying and eating mustard’. In order for bank account blackmail victim C to release his frozen account as quickly as possible, he must reach an agreement with identity theft victim B, but it is not easy to even contact B, so it usually takes three months for the account to be normalized.

○Increasing requests for suspension of payments to accounts used fraudulently

The exact amount of damage caused by bank account threats has not been calculated. However, the financial sector believes that while the overall number of voice phishing incidents and the amount of damage are decreasing, the number of ‘requests to suspend payment’ is increasing, which means that the number of cases of damage from bank account threats is increasing.

According to the Financial Services Commission, the number of requests to suspend payments to fraudulently used accounts increased from 33,730 in 2020 to 45,321 in 2021. Last year, the number was 41,414 from January to September, which is rapidly increasing. The government and the National Assembly are also pushing for a revision of the law, seeing that the number of damage caused by bank account threats is increasing. Democratic Party lawmaker Park Jae-ho and People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Chang-hyeon proposed an amendment (Telecommunications Fraud Damage Refund Act) that would suspend payment only for the amount remitted, not for the entire account, even if voice phishing was reported in March and July, respectively. It was proposed. However, discussions have not yet taken place in the standing committee, the Political Affairs Committee.

Reporter Jeong Eui-jin [email protected]

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