Back fraud must start from the source, but based on the multinational operation of fraud gangs, governments seem to be helpless.One of the effective ways is to start with the tools of contacting the victim from the scam gang.According to the police in the first half of 2023, the data of phone fraud is the third most common and most common tool for mobile phone text messages and social media platforms.
Starting from last Friday (January 5), local mobile phone users can ask telecommunications companies to block overseas calls and prevent international telephone fraud.Once users choose to start this service, all international telephones cannot be dialed in. It is unlikely that users who have received foreign phone calls will not accidentally receive fraud calls.The Information and Communication Media Development Bureau also cooperated with the telecommunications company to expand the plan to block mobile phone text messages from international numbers before mid -middle of this year.However, if there is a relative and friend or business in a foreign country, the new features are not applicable. Users still have to be vigilant by themselves without answering or calling back strange calls.
According to the information of the assets and media bureau, Singapore users receive about 1.6 billion internationally call each year. From January to September last year, telecommunications companies intercepted more than 300 million suspicious calls.Imagine if these telephones were not intercepted, even if the user did not answer or fooled, facing these unknown call bombing every day, it was also a harassment for life.
Whenever someone is deceived by money and suffered money, public opinion points to the government, telecommunications company or bank, thinking that they are not caused by the level.This may not be fair.For example, since 2020, all foreign calls will be marked with the "+" prefix to help Chinese people identify potential fraud calls.Later, the scammers used the number of fraudulent scam technology to display the phone number began with "+65", which made the victim mistakenly believe that the phone came from the country, so since December 2020, Singapore has shielded all the international numbers and "+65" internationally.Call.In addition, sending mobile phone text messages to stop scammers' imitation status, starting from the end of January last year, only the agencies registered in advance can send mobile phone text messages as sender ID.
However, the fraud phone has not disappeared. One of the big reasons is that scammers are also changing their strategies. They now use international numbers and other communication platforms such as WhatsApp to contact the victims.The latest measures cannot prevent the scammer from contacting the victim through WhatsApp.For telecommunications companies and law enforcement agencies, it is a continuous challenge to walk at the front end of the scammer, but the distance from them must not be too far away.But it is not enough. What we need to prevent fraudulent calls and information from communicating platforms such as WhatsApp.
Telephone fraud is not unique to Singapore, and this region and European and American countries also occur from time to time.In Hong Kong, the local telecommunications company issued 117,000 alerts every day to remind people to be alert to the fraud of Hong Kong people with the "+852" number. HoweverThe fraud case of "guessing me", which was called S $ 200 million), has increased significantly, which is similar to Singapore.
Scammers cross -border deception requires international community cooperation to solve problems.Singapore signed a memorandum with the United States, New Zealand, Australia and other countries last year. It is hoped that through multinational cooperation, information exchanges are enhanced in terms of regulatory, technology and policies to protect Chinese people from suffering from harm.Yang Liming, Minister of Communications and News and Second Minister of the Ministry of the Interior, said in an exclusive interview with Lianhe Morning Post that in recent years, fraudulent behaviors have spread with digital technology as fast and fiercely as wildfires.More preventive measures restrict the channels for deception.However, even if we continue to monitor and implement additional protection measures, scammers always try to bypass, so the public must always be vigilant and raise awareness of anti -fraud.
