As the Spring Festival is approaching, many social apps are sending out “red envelopes” to attract users. However, the Qinhuai police have received a number of reports on “red envelop fraud”.
Case One: Ms. Zhou received a link of getting the 500 yuan coupon ($81.3) “red envelope” on her WeChat from a friend. She clicked the link and filled in her personal information including ID number, phone number and WeChat account in order to get the coupon. However, only five minutes after the submission, Ms. Zhou received a message saying that over 10,000 yuan ($1,620) was taken out from her bank account. Ms. Zhou checked with her friend and was told that her friend’s WeChat account was hacked. Ms. Zhou found out that she fell into a trap and she immediately called the police. The police had Ms. Zhou’s phone tested and found a Trojan program in the QR code. When the suspect had Ms. Zhou’s information, the suspect then forwarded text message from the bank via the Trojan program and took the money from Ms. Zhou’s account.
Case Two: Liu runs an electrical repair shop and he opened a shop on Taobao. The business is good. A few days ago, Liu received a call from “Taobao customer service”, asking Liu to join the “sending red envelop” activity as the Spring Festival is approaching and other shops are already in. Liu agreed and he let the “service representative” to remote-control his computer in order to get all the steps completed. The next day, Liu found that 8,000 yuan ($1301.9) in his account was gone. Police investigation showed that some criminals would take advantage of the lack of understanding from owners of online shops to mislead shop owners. Some criminals would act as customers and “buy” goods from the store to fool the shop owners and then the “customer” would ask for red envelop from the shop owner. If the owner believes the “customer”, then the “service representative” would call the owner and then conduct the fraud.
