Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers yesterday called for enhanced anti-fraud measures for banks and apps to protect consumers from phishing attacks.
They made the remarks at a news conference calling for amendment to the Regulations Governing the Standards for Information System and Security Management of Electronic Payment Institutions (電子支付機構資訊系統標準及安全控管作業基準辦法) at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
A woman surnamed Wang (王) told reporters that she lost NT$190,000 (US$6,436) after giving away her credit card information to buy farm-to-table fruit.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Eight fraudulent purchases were made within two hours with her card on a payment app, she added.
Other victims of the scheme have been identified after she reported the crime to police, Wang said.
Online credit card fraud is a rising problem that drained an estimated NT$1.93 billion from the Taiwanese economy last year, Legislator Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said, citing the National Credit Card Center.
The regulations — which include standards for consumer safeguards in electronic transactions — have not been updated since 2014 and cannot be utilized to regulate apps, Chung said.
User authentication, transaction limits, mechanism for detecting suspicious transactions and arbitration processes, as well as other necessary measures, are not regulated for purchases on apps, he said.
“The regulations need to keep up with the times,” he added.
Legislator Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文) said the regulations should be amended to make apps and banks bear some responsibility to protect people from being defrauded while using their services.
Regulators should require businesses to send customers messages that warn about fraud and create an anti-phishing task force to investigate app fraud, the lawmakers said.
Department of Consumer Protection ombudsman Wang Chih-hung (王志宏) said the agency would ask the Ministry of Economic Affairs to start drafting the amendments needed and organizing a task force.
Tsao Yu-ling (曹玉翎), a senior officer at the Financial Supervisory Commission, said the proposal for warning messages would be discussed with the Bankers Association and a trip wire system for suspicious transactions would be discussed with the Banking Bureau.
Lee Yung-yi (李勇毅), a senior official at the ministry, said officials would examine whether revisions to the standard form for contracts with banks and apps should be changed to improve consumer protection.
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
RSS