A Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) collaboration with Google and Facebook parent Meta uncovered more than 24,820 incidents of fraud from April 10 last year to Jan. 31.
The FSC last year entered talks with Google and Meta, with all sides agreeing that if the government reported a site or user for fraud, the companies would ban the users or take down the sites on their platforms.
Last month was the highest number of reports at 5,203, it said.
Photo: CNA
The commission has tasked peripheral organizations with stepping up efforts to collect evidence of contraventions of the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Act (證券投資信託及顧問法).
The Securities and Futures Bureau has monitored a gradual increase in contraventions or borderline fraudulent advertisements in the past few months, bureau Deputy Director Kao Ching-ping (高晶萍) said.
This could be a result of other organizations becoming more experienced in recognizing the kinds of advertisements that contravene the act, Kao said.
The 787 incidents reported to the bureau last year was a record for the past three years, it said.
Last month, it received 69 fraud complaints, up 27 from the same period last year.
Government agencies have been stepping up measures to inform people about online fraud, Kao said, adding that once people knew what to look for, the number of reports increased.
People should be wary of online groups promoting bitcoin or other cryptocurrency investments as “easy money,” she said.
Separately, Fubon Group yesterday said that people should not join online groups they do not know, not listen to advice or trust information from unverifiable sources and refrain from using third-party applications to manage finances.
Fubon Financial Holdings said its subsidiaries had reported and removed 299 third-party applications, phishing Web sites and other fraudulent items on social media last year.
Cathay Financial Holding Co said it prevented 1,802 fraud attempts and NT$1.28 billion (US$40.82 million) from being scammed last year.
In other news, the Banking Bureau said that it has fined CTBC Bank NT$125,000 following incidents of its employees viewing client information in contravention of the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
Bureau also said that Ta Chan Securities had been fined NT$540,000 for failing to obtain client permission to make investments, not identifying a board member as possibly having a conflict of interest, failing to implement safeguards for giving telephone instructions to clients and failing to establish measures to protect clients’ personal information.
It fined SinoPac Securities NT$480,000 for its employees recording investment orders without their clients’ specific instructions, it said.
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