A legislator and a city councilor yesterday urged the government to establish a mechanism for overturning “anti-fraud warning account” designations, saying innocent citizens have been unfairly penalized despite being cleared by prosecutors.
Speaking at a news conference in Taipei, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) and New Taipei City Councilor Lin Kuo-chun (林國春) said that the “warning account” system, which was introduced in June 2023 to curb fraudulent bank accounts used by scam rings, has unfairly affected people unwittingly implicated in fraud.
Under the system, people who provide or hand over bank accounts to others without legitimate reason can face administrative sanctions, including account restrictions, even in cases that do not involve criminal penalties.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
National Police Agency data showed that authorities have issued 124,617 warning account dispositions nationwide, while receiving 3,937 complaints and administrative appeals related to the policy, Wang said.
However, only about 1 percent of appeals have successfully overturned the sanctions, she said.
Wang questioned whether it was proportionate for people to continue losing financial rights after prosecutors had determined they were not guilty or declined to indict them.
Government agencies should review whether the current administrative measures comply with the principle of proportionality, she added.
Lin shared a case involving an online seller whose account became implicated after receiving funds later identified as proceeds of fraud.
Although the seller had not provided account numbers or passwords to a fraud syndicate, the person was still treated as a suspected accomplice because of involvement in the money flow, he said.
Once designated as a warning account, online banking and financial transactions linked to the account can effectively be frozen for five years, Lin said, adding that innocent people could become entangled simply because one party in a transaction was involved in fraud.
While supporting the government’s efforts to combat fraud, Wang said the system has created serious hardships for many people.
Filing administrative appeals can take at least 30 days, while judicial proceedings are often lengthy and impractical for ordinary citizens, she said.
Even when people obtain a non-prosecution ruling proving their innocence, there is no legal mechanism allowing authorities to revoke the warning account designation, Wang said.
She attributed the problem to the fact that existing regulations only authorize the Ministry of Justice, the National Police Agency and the Financial Supervisory Commission to formulate procedures for issuing warning account sanctions, without establishing rules governing how such sanctions can be rescinded.
Wang and Lin called on the ministry, police authorities and financial regulators to quickly draft supporting regulations that would allow innocent people to clear their records and regain access to normal financial services.
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