A typical message as shown in the picture traps unsuspecting victims with fake prize announcements. (Photo: cqnews.net)

BEIJING, Nov. 2 -- Attention, Chinese mobile phone users!

    If your phone rings and it stops ringing before you answer the call, you might be inclined to return the call without checking the caller's identity. DON'T DO THAT!!!

    If you call back numbers starting with 0941, or 0951, you will be charged 500 Yuan or over 50 U.S. dollars each time on your bill for such fake callers.

    That's only one of the traps set for mobile phone users, Chinese police are warning.

    Similar crimes relating to fake or illegal telephone calls or short text messages have been flooding and targeting mobile phone users in the country, according to reports.

    To address rising concerns from the public, Chinese authorities have begun a nationwide crackdown on the fake and illegal short message services, a newspaper said.

    The People's Daily reported on Wednesday that the national campaign is being jointly organized by the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Information Industry, and the China Banking Regulatory Commission, in a bid to protect the interests of the common people.

    The public security authority has called on the public to report incidents of wrongful SMS messages to the hotline number 110.

    The newspaper reports that authorities have outlawed categories of SMS texts including:

    -- fake messages in the name of a banking services;

    -- pornographic, gambling, violence and terrorist related information; teaching crimes;

    -- illegal sales of arms, explosives, vehicle and drugs smuggling; fake banknotes, invoices;

    Fake lottery information, illegal matchmaking and job offers, prostitution, and whatsoever out of line with the laws and regulations in China.

    Police officers are warning the public against the illegal and fake SMS messages, saying that criminal suspects operate in groups behind the scene, often generating huge amounts of illegal SMS messages using equipment assembled together in remote places.

    The criminals sometimes claim to offer bank account and transferring services, often with compelling features, and even claiming to be in the name of banking and public security offices themselves.

    The officers briefed the media on a fake SMS case in Shanghai.

    From August 19, 2005, people in Shanghai reported to public security officials that they had received short text message claiming that they had spent a certain amount of money in a shop and then were required to transfer money from Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) to another designated account for the sake of security.

    Local police later found out that the two criminal suspects from Taiwan and six from Fujian were behind the series of fake message plots. They used fake personal ID cards, credit card, cell phone numbers, and message sending machines equipped on personal computers in their cheating activities. The eight suspects operated successfully more than 140 times in Shanghai and collected over 10 million Yuan or over 1,200,000 US dollars from victims' accounts in the city.

    The officers warn the public to beware of the fake and illegal messages from unknown or unapproved sources, urging phone users to be careful in dialing strange telephone numbers. They also advise that no credit card information should ever be transferred to others electronically, or money transferred to a strange account.

    (Source: CRIENGLISH.com)