Compiled by BENJAMIN LEE, ALLISON LAI and R. ARAVINTHAN
A RETIREE in Hangzhou, China, narrowly avoided losing 1.66 million yuan (RM980,000) – by simply deciding to cook dinner.
The woman, known by her surname Xu, in her 60s, received a call from someone claiming to be from the “China UnionPay Association”, warning her of fraudulent charges.
Surprisingly, Xu fell for it, despite this being a common scam tactic, as reported by Nanyang Siang Pau.
The scammer made several calls, guiding her to download an app, add a contact and enable video calls. They also instructed her to transfer 1.66 million yuan from another account into her savings. During this process, her SMS verification code was even leaked.
But just before making the final transfer, Xu decided to cook dinner. It was past 5pm and she told the scammer: “I need to cook now. This isn’t urgent, I’ll handle it later.”
The scammer had no choice but to wait. Meanwhile, her bank had alerted local police to the potential fraud.
After failing to reach Xu, officers rushed to her home.
Their timely intervention prevented the transfer.
> A high school student in Taipei, Taiwan, was detained for hacking an EasyCard, a contactless payment card used for transport and shopping.
He used an C (wireless technology) reader-writer to repeatedly add value to the card for free, China Press reported.
This incident marks the first known financial loss for EasyCard Corporation. Police solved the case within two months of receiving a report.
The student, despite not being from an electronics background, converted the free top-ups into cash at Metro ticket machines and used the card as an ATM.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a, it denotes a separate news item.
