Good examples to repel voice phishing scams

“It makes no sense. Are you really a police officer?”

Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and the National Police Agency (NPA), which recently have released some recordings of actual voice phishing frauds on the Internet, disclosed good examples to fend off voice phishing calls.

The 39 recorded files uploaded to the Voice Phishing Keeper (phishing-keeper.fss.or.kr) website by the FSS and the NPA on Sunday show good examples of how to react to the voice phishing crimes.

The FSS and the NPA categorized the 39 cases into several types including "bold response (27 cases)," "angry scolding (6 cases)," "no response (7 cases)" and "calm preaching (2 cases)." When a voice phishing criminal pretended to be a police officer investigating a crime case, a citizen boldly responded, “What is your name and position? I will call the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutor’s Office and ask to speak to you, officer.” This was categorized as the "bold response" case.

In many cases, citizens scolded the voice phishing criminals. To a voice phishing criminal who imitated a police officer to summon a victim of a crime case, a citizen counterattacked, “The prosecutor’s office should send a summons or a subpoena. It doesn’t make sense to summon to a court via phone call. Are you really a police investigator?”