Earlier this month, people visiting the National Theater Concert Hall’s (NTCH) ticketing Web site (www.artsticket.com.tw) began seeing a pop-up warning about telephone and ATM fraud.
It turns out that con artists have been calling people who booked tickets, claiming to be from the NTCH’s customer service center or its accounting office, and saying that there had been a problem with the ticket order and the payment method needed to be changed.
The purported problems varied from double bookings to inaccuracies with affiliate discounts to a computer system failure.
Photo: TAIPEI TIMES
The customers were then told that their order would be canceled, refunded and a new order placed, but they needed to provide details of their bank or post office accounts and then go to an ATM machine to transfer funds according to the fraudsters’ instructions.
The phone numbers used by the fraudsters varied, but some were made to appear as if they were coming from the NTCH customer service line.
NTCH official William Lee (李君偉) said the first complaint about the scam was received at 5pm on Aug. 30 and that as of last week, more than 600 complaints had been received.
It is the first time that the NTCH ticketing Web site has been targeted by fraudsters, he said in an e-mail, adding that the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau and the police are investigating.
The NTCH said that once a ticket transaction is completed online, its service center would never call a customer back to request a change to the payment process. Anyone who receives such a phone call should ignore it, or contact the customer service hotline (02-3393-9888) directly or its box offices to report it, NTCH said.
The NTCH has extended the hotline’s hours in response to the scam. The hotline is now open from 9am to 10pm daily instead of the normal 1pm to 5pm, or customers can call the NTCH box offices directly during normal office hours, 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday.
There has been no indication that customers’ credit card information has been hacked, Lee said.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built