Mr. Kim, in his 30s living in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do, found a post on the 1st that said he was selling an iPhone on a used trading site.
Mr. Kim decided to make a parcel delivery transaction with Mr. Lee, a seller living in Mokpo, Jeollanam-do, and looked up Mr. Lee’s phone number and account number through ‘The Cheet’, a fraudulent transaction history inquiry service.
After confirming that Mr. Lee’s contact information and account had never been reported as fraudulent, Mr. Kim received and checked Lee’s resident registration card, and decided to proceed with her transaction with confidence.
Mr. Kim received a photo of her courier invoice from Mr. Lee and deposited 960,000 won for her goods into Mr. Lee’s account. However, after that, Mr. Lee cut off contact with her, and the item sent by her courier did not arrive.
Dozens of victims of scams that abused ‘infinite generation’ savings accountsA total of 37 victims gathered in a group chat room after being안전놀이터 scammed while trying to trade second-hand with Lee like Kim, and the amount of damage reached 32 million won.
Most of them looked up Mr. Lee’s account number on ‘The Cheat’, a site where you can check the history of fraud before transactions, to confirm that he had never been reported as a fraud, but to no avail.
This is because Lee used a free savings account that can be opened indefinitely for second-hand transactions.
A free savings account is an account in which the depositor can deposit money whenever he or she wants without a designated date, and can also receive remittances from other people. In particular, there are no restrictions on opening new accounts, so one person can open dozens of accounts at one bank a day. In order to prevent it from being used for financial fraud, it is contrasted with general deposit and withdrawal bankbooks, which allow new accounts to be opened only after a certain period of time.
For four days from the 31st of last month to the 3rd of last month, at least 31 installment savings accounts were opened in Bank A under Lee’s name and used for second-hand transaction fraud.
Since a new account was created each time a scam was committed, it was easy to extort money from victims without being caught by fraud history checks.
‘Account number change service’ frequently changing numbersIn addition to the savings account, Mr. Lee also used general deposit and withdrawal accounts for second-hand transaction fraud.
It was thanks to the ‘account number change service’ that the account holder could change the account number at will, while using a general deposit and withdrawal account with limited opening, and being able to escape the fraud history inquiry network.
This service allows the depositor to change the bank account number to a number desired (easy to memorize) and is provided by most commercial banks.
However, since the account number can be easily changed through the Internet without limit on the period and number of times, it can be abused for financial fraud like ‘savings account’.
In the case of Mr. Lee, it was found that he cheated at least 5 people by changing the number of a deposit and withdrawal account in the name of Mr. Lee opened at Bank A. When the account number used in the fraud is registered with ‘The Cheat’, it seems that the method of changing the account number was used.
The bank said, “The service created for customer convenience has become a situation where it is being abused for fraud contrary to its original purpose.”
Regarding the loophole of savings accounts, “The authorities and the banking industry put their heads together to seek ways to improve it, but unlike voice phishing, second-hand transaction fraud has no legal basis, so they have not been able to come up with an effective plan.” Under the Act on the Prevention of Damage from Electronic Financial and Communication Fraud, the law must be amended to include it in the category of electronic financial and communication fraud.”