Chunghwa Post (中華郵政) said yesterday that it would investigate some problematic accounts after legislators alleged that some accounts were being used by fraud gangs to collect money from their victims.
At the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) cited an investigation by the Control Yuan that showed the nation’s largest postal firm had approximately 40,000 suspense accounts. A report said the post office had opened 12,235 suspense accounts between January and September 2004, making up 36.7 percent of the total number of suspense accounts in the country. This year, the number had jumped to 47,086, approximately 41 percent of the total.
In response, Chunghwa Post chairman Oliver Yu (游芳來) said many people like to have a savings account at the post office, which may partially explain why the post office has so many suspense accounts. He said an internal investigation showed that some people opened an account at the post office, then later sold the account on to someone else. Among the suspense accounts, 92 percent were purchased from existing post office account owners.
“We have canceled most of the suspense accounts. Now the number is down to only 1,599,” Yu told the committee.
He said the post office has been actively cooperating with police to prevent fraud gangs from exploiting dummy accounts. Since last year, it has handled a total of 806 cases, which involved NT$312 million (US$9.7 million).
He said the post office would establish a special task force to find a solution to the problem.
The committee was scheduled to review the budget for Chunghwa Post for the next fiscal year yesterday, designated National Anti-Fraud Day.
Aside from the suspense accounts, Lo also questioned the post office’s risk management abilities as it listed an accumulated loss of NT$1 billion after investing in Lehman Brothers bonds and three other securities that were now worthless.
“It seems to me that you have a preference for ‘landmine’ stocks,” she said.
Chunghwa Post president Hu Hsueh-yun (胡雪雲) said the company invested in the securities many years ago, when they had seemed to be a good investment.
“The subsequent changes in the financial markets were beyond our control,” Hu said. “Back then, we did not have much experience in leveraging the postal savings fund.”
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