Telecom Fraud via Gift Cards during Mid-Autumn Festival Cases and Warnings
TapTechNews September 16th news, according to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Daily's evening report today, around the Mid-Autumn Festival, fraudsters begin to become 'active' by taking advantage of the festival and conduct telecommunications fraud activities in the form of gift cards, etc.
A case mentioned in the report: A citizen in Changzhou, Xiaoqin, received a courier package, inside which was a 'Mid-Autumn Festival gift card' claiming to be able to receive triple luxury gifts of snacks, laundry detergent, and cash. Driven by curiosity, Xiaoqin scanned the QR code on the card and joined a group chat. At first, the group owner released some simple tasks, such as searching for a song and screenshotting it to send to the group, and she successfully received a small amount of red envelopes. However, this was just the beginning of the fraud.
As the 'tasks' deepened, the group owner induced Xiaoqin to download an App called 'Oriental Singing Enjoy' and claimed that she could get 'substantial rewards' after completing the promotional tasks. Xiaoqin transferred 1020 US dollars and 13860 US dollars successively, until she couldn't withdraw cash and the other party continued to ask for a transfer, then she realized that she had been deceived and immediately called the police.
At present, similar cases have been reported in many places across the country, and the main routines are as follows:
Broadcasting by mailing: Fraudsters, through mailing a large number of couriers, embed cards and QR codes for receiving gifts inside as bait to cast a wide net.
Scanning the QR code to receive benefits and be pulled into a group chat: Once someone scans the QR code out of curiosity, they will be lured to join a group chat or download the specified App, and further reduce the victim's wariness through small rebates.
Inducing刷单 (doing tasks in a specific way) to commit fraud: In the group or App, they release tasks of刷单 (doing tasks in a specific way), first give a small commission as bait, and then induce the victim to continuously increase the investment, and finally refuse to withdraw cash for various reasons and ask for continued transfer until the victim finds out that they have been deceived.
TapTechNews has reported many similar forms of fraud last year, all in the form of receiving 'gift cards' and then doing tasks, downloading Apps, etc. Such scams use scanning the QR code to receive prizes as bait to further implement various criminal activities by collecting personal information, and there will be risks of personal information leakage and misappropriation, and even lead to financial losses.
Related reading:
'JD Spokesperson: There are illegal elements冒充 (pretending to be) JD to mail gift cards to users, beware of being deceived'
'Gree: The 'gift card' is false information, and has not held or jointly done such activities with merchants'