Responding to media reports that a mentally challenged person had been the victim of a telephone fraud case, the Parents’ Association for Persons with Intellectual Disability (PAPID) yesterday urged the government and mobile service providers to put measures in place to prevent the same thing happening again.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiang Nai-shin (蔣乃辛) said earlier this month that a 30-year-old mentally challenged person who wished to remain anonymous had asked him for help, saying he was the victim in a telephone fraud case.
“The man received a phone call from a woman on Sept. 5, saying that she wanted to be friends with him, and asked him to call her back,” Chiang said. “As the man talked to the woman on the phone, the woman continuously threatened him not to hang up.”
As a result, the man ended up talking with the woman all night until 6am the next day, and received a telephone bill of NT$22,150 for the overnight phone call, Chiang said.
As he comes from a low-income family and works at a shelter bakery, the man was unable to pay the bill. Although his parents tried to negotiate with Chunghwa Telecom, the company only agreed to give a NT$10,000 discount.
They only waived the payment after Chiang’s intervention.
“Chunghwa Telecom should have waived the payment in the first place,” Chiang said. “Because mentally challenged people lack the ability to make appropriate judgments, and are easy targets for fraudsters groups.”
Responding to the case, PAPID deputy secretary-general Sun I-hsin (孫一信) said the group has tried to ask mobile service providers to introduce special designations for clients who are mentally challenged to prevent them from becoming victims of telephone fraud or agreeing to purchase unnecessary mobile services.
“Unfortunately, mobile service providers have not agreed to our request, saying that it could violate clients’ freedom,” Sun said.
Sun suggested mobile service providers could introduce a function that blocks certain numbers on cell phones.
“This function is available to home phones, but not yet to cell phones. It should be introduced to prevent cases like this happening in future,” he said.
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