Beware of ATM culprit
I do not know should I praise the ATM culprits for their exceptional ability to swindle money from the public through ATM. Or should I blame the stupidity of those people who got cheated again and again repeatedly by these swindlers.
For the past year, I have watched the evening news at least a dozen times for this same type of crimes on TV. What they do is to call up a cell phone number randomly. The first thing they would say is “This is a call from (some well known company) to inform you that you have just won our annual customer lucky draw for a prize of certain amount of cash.”
A short while later, another person would call you to tell you the winning sum has now been deposited to your bank account. And you should confirm your acceptance with your ATM card in about one hour. If you have any question, you should call back at cell phone number so and so.
They will urge you to go the bank and check out the amount immediately. They will follow up the matter with you by phone later to make sure you have received the full sum all right.
Naturally, you will not find any money in your bank when you check up with your bank ATM card. At this moment, you will receive another phone pretending to ask you if you have already got the money.
When you tell her or him "No", they will say the reason is probably you have not yet paid the withdrawal fee to the company. They will then direct you to transfer your withdrawal fee through the ATM machine.
By the time the victim realizes what on earth is going, he has already transferred all his bank’s saving to the culprit.
This may sound like a fairy tale suitable to tell to children for fun. But it amazes me that it does actually happen. And it happens so time and time again.
Local authorities seem to have a hard time cracking down this type of crime. The master mind is out of the country in China. They recruit the locals through out South East Asia for local operations. But many operations are actually being carried out in China. Due to cheap VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), they make their phone calls directly from China.
The last person who suffered the lost through this same type of ATM scandal was a lady last month. Her total loss was Baths 600,000 or US$ 17,000
The authority says the best way to counter this type of cross countries electronic crime is to educate the public. We should let the public know and aware of the existence of this type of ATM cheat.
I hope all parties concern will do their tasks to inform and alert the public throughout. I also hope I will not have to listen to news like this again.