When you encounter a problem, are you used to opening the search engine to find the customer service number? As everyone knows, the danger of telecom fraud is creeping into you!
On "March 15", the surging quality concept complaint platform (http://tousu.thepaper.cn) recently received a series of consumer complaints that using a search engine to search for customer service calls encountered telecom fraud. What confuses them the most is that the phone numbers of several web pages that are used as search results cannot tell the difference between real and fake.
In this regard, Qu Zilong, founder of the civil Internet security organization Network Sharp Knife, introduced that impersonation (related platforms) customer service fraud has become a common fraud industry, and has been listed by the Ministry of Public Security as one of the five high-incidence fraud cases. In addition to posting fake phone calls to impersonate brand customer service and platform customer service, fraudsters will even publish fake online alarm calls to impersonate anti-fraud centers to commit fraud.
Qu Zilong also said that although search engines continue to iteratively upgrade their technology for the above problems, it is difficult to verify and block small platforms such as games and P2P, and "if such fake phone scams are widely managed, more efforts are required from the platform."
Scam calls impersonate multiple game customer service calls on search engines.
Baidu, 360 search engine has folded unverified calls.
Easy to find "customer service number"
Ms. Xie from Guangzhou said that on January 23, the child used her mobile phone to log in to the QQ account of netizens to play games, during which she recharged more than 2,100 yuan to a game called "Sausage Party", "He used the money in my mobile phone to recharge into QQ to play games." The QQ number belongs to the child's netizen, and he does not have an account himself."
The consumption records show that the relevant accounts made multiple recharges to the "Sausage Party" game operator, Xindong Network Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Xindong Network"), in less than 2 hours, and the maximum amount of a single recharge was 648 yuan.
After learning the situation, Ms. Xie immediately contacted the official WeChat account of Xindong Network to apply for a refund, but because the child used someone else's QQ number, the real-name authentication has not been passed, "I can't contact their online customer service, each time the queue is forty or fifty people, finally got to the front and was kicked out to re-queue, and did not contact the manual customer service for several days."
Ms. Xie, who failed to contact online customer service, found a "sausage party refund national customer service number" through Baidu search on January 26. After calling the number, a customer service agent claiming to be the number 089 was connected.
After Ms. Xie provided the relevant account number, the other party clearly stated the amount of the child's recharge. Regarding the refund issue, the other party said that it was necessary to ensure that there was a balance of more than 10,000 yuan in the account to activate the "enterprise account" and apply for a refund.
"I didn't believe why the refund needed to be transferred before it could be refunded, but they were able to check the amount of my child's recharge, and I thought it must be Xindong Network, so I believed them." Ms. Xie said that under the guidance of the other party, she transferred 9,986 yuan to the other party's designated bank account. Later, the other party said that she had successfully applied for a refund and asked her to wait for the refund to arrive.
However, the day after the transfer, Ms. Xie received a call from the Anti-fraud Center, saying that she had had contact with fraudsters the day before and was at risk of being scammed. Only then did Ms. Xie realize that she had been deceived, and then called the "manual customer service number" that asked her to transfer money, and it kept showing that the line was busy and could not be connected.
The same happened to Mr. Chen, a consumer in Anhui Province. He told The Paper that in June last year, the Daikin central air conditioner at home failed, and he immediately found the after-sales service hotline through Baidu search, "There are many calls on the Internet, I thought that large companies have more customer service and telephones."
Mr. Chen called one of the "after-sales calls" starting with 400, and the other party claimed to be the official after-sales team of Daikin Air Conditioning. After learning that Mr. Chen's air conditioner has been purchased for more than 5 years, the other party proposed an old trade-in plan, "She said that now Daikin Air Conditioner has a comprehensive upgrade package to thank old customers, like when I bought my air conditioner was more than 28,000 yuan, now I only need to make up 1999 yuan, you can apply for trade-in, and free door-to-door replacement."
This statement made Mr. Chen very moved, "She said that I have to pay the cost of the new air conditioner 38,000 yuan and the replacement fee of 1,999 yuan first, so that they can arrange the warehouse delivery, the master will directly bring the new air conditioner to the door to replace it on the same day, and after the replacement is completed, the old air conditioner will be returned to the same day to return the same fee of 38,000 yuan, so as to ensure that we do not affect our use." Mr. Chen said that when he was about to transfer money, he was dissuaded by his family, and later after asking the official WeChat online customer service of Daikin Air Conditioning, he learned that there was no trade-in service, "Calling that number again is another person answering, which is completely deceptive." Mr. Chen then posted his experience on social media, hoping to arouse more people's awareness of anti-fraud.
In the Sogou engine, one number is impersonated by multiple customer service calls.
Why can I still be on the homepage and be at the top?
The surging news reporter noticed that searching for "sausage party refund customer service number" on the search engine, more than ten different calls can appear on one page, all of which are called "sausage party national refund customer service online phone", it is difficult to distinguish the real from the fake.
After copying one of the numbers and searching in reverse, it was found that the number also claimed to be "Harbin Consumer Finance Official Service Phone", "National Magic Gun Official Customer Service Phone" and "Xiaomi Game National Customer Service Phone", and the number had been marked as "Scam Phone" in the first article of Baidu's homepage.
In fact, it is not uncommon to search search for relevant calls through search engines to be scammed.
Previously, the Xiamen Anti-fraud Center issued an early warning case saying that fraudsters posted an "online police number" on the Internet to impersonate the Xiamen Anti-fraud Center, and released that "the Anti-fraud Center can freeze the defrauded money", which convinced Mr. Zhu, who was anxious because of the stolen credit card, and under the guidance of the other party's promise that "funds can be recovered", Mr. Zhu entered 8,080 yuan into the fraudster's "safe account".
According to the information released by the Xiamen Anti-fraud Center, among the cases of being deceived through search engine searches, the number of fraud alarms for purchasing or changing air tickets was the largest. In December 2014, a couple went to Xiamen to buy a house, but were defrauded of 1.78 million yuan by the fraud method of changing air tickets.
According to the Xiamen Anti-fraud Center, victims who used search engines to be deceived mentioned the same question when they returned - why did fraudulent information appear on the first page of Baidu search, or even the first and second articles? This leads consumers to mistakenly believe that these web pages are "authoritatively published", which leads to eventual deceiving them.
The 360 search engine publishes the phone number of 360 official collation on the first article of the home page.
Are search engines really running out of donkey skills?
In this regard, Qu Zilong, founder of the civil Internet security organization Network Sharp Knife, introduced to The Paper that impersonation (related platform) customer service fraud has become a very common and mature fraud industry, "Initially common in the construction of 'counterfeit phishing websites', through email, QQ chat, BBS messages and other ways to spread fraud, now derived to the purchase of black data telephone fraud, to some authoritative self-media platforms through the submission of fake customer service and telephone information, and then find a large number of consulting websites to submit fake customer service content, False information scams end up being information that victims find on search engines. ”
Qu Zilong said that the hardest hit area for publishing false information in the search engine to carry out fraud is actually the loan refund of the P2P industry, "XXX platform withdrawal phone has become a very mature fraud, black industry industry, that is, by paying everywhere to find high-authority websites to submit, batch release fake customer service contact information," he said, many P2P2 platforms have been refunded, but debtors have to continue to repay, "they can't find the original platform from the Internet, they entered the trap of the fake platform, and thought that they repaid to the A platform." It's actually all in the pockets of scammers. ”
Can search engines use technical means to avoid this risk of fraud? Qu Zilong believes that these false information are not directly published on search engines, many of them are released through self-media platforms, and then included in the Internet by search engines, "it is indeed difficult to govern and block on the platform."
Can I go further after shouting?
The surging news reporter noticed that at present, when searching for XXX brand customer service phone or after-sales phone in the Baidu search engine, the first customer service phone number on the home page shows the "official number", followed by the enterprise phone registered on the big platform, while other searched contact information will be hidden, and prompt "the results not determined by Baidu may have a risk of false fraud and have been hidden." If the user wants to continue browsing, they need to click on "I already know the possible risks" to expand other hidden results. ”
In this regard, Baidu public communication platform staff told The Paper that the search demand for customer service calls has always been listed as a high-risk area search demand by Baidu Search. Since 2009, Baidu has launched a series of product forms such as security tips, customer service Aladdin, and folding untrusted results to ensure user safety. At the same time, anti-cheat tactics have also been identifying and suppressing fake calls.
The staff member also said that due to the diversity and complexity of the expression of user-related needs, the ranking of search results cannot be achieved without manual intervention, and it cannot achieve 100% coverage. If the user finds that there is fraud in the relevant phone, he can report it to Baidu and clean up if there is a violation.
Similar explorations have been made by 360 and the Sogou search engine. The surging news reporter noticed that searching for XXX brand customer service phone on the 360 search engine will also appear on the first article of the home page by 360 official sorted out customer service phone results, while the phone of other web pages will be collapsed, and security prompts, users can click to expand all results.
Sogou Search said that at present, for the search results of key categories such as finance, Sogou will give priority to displaying official phones and folding irrelevant calls, and "the follow-up plan will cover more areas."
However, this method still has a long way to go for some games and fake customer service calls of non-well-known brands. Search for "sausage party customer service phone" in 360 search, Sogou search, Bing search and other engines, there will be multi-page search results, including multiple phone numbers, but the phone numbers on the web page are all fake calls - verified by The Paper Xiangxin Network, the "Sausage Party" game does not have telephone customer service, only online customer service.
However, Baidu and 360 search engines have now provided the function of reverse retrieval of phones. If you enter a phone number in Baidu search, if this number has been reported by users, it will be marked as "scam call" on the first article of the homepage.
The 360 search engine interfaces with 360 Mobile Guard, and provides users with telecom fraud number query function by cooperating with operators and public security organs: users reverse search phone numbers on the 360 search engine, and if it is a scam call, it will be marked on the first page of the homepage "This number has recently been marked by XX 360 Mobile Guard users, suspected of being a scam phone".