"Fell Victim to Phishing"... Waiting for Number Suspension Leads to More Losses

It has been revealed that due to the time it takes to suspend telephone numbers even after reporting voice phishing damage to the police, additional phishing losses continue to occur during the waiting period.

According to data on voice phishing damage over the past five years submitted by the Korean National Police Agency to Representative Park Jung-hyun of the Democratic Party of Korea, who is a member of the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee, among cases where it took two or more days from reporting the damage to suspending the telephone number, there were 5 cases this year alone where two or more additional damages occurred using the same number.

In a case reported in Daejeon on March 9, it took 7 days from the damage report to the suspension of the telephone number, and during this interval, 3 additional damages occurred, resulting in a total loss of 44 million KRW.

In another case reported in Gyeongnam on April 7, it took 6 days to suspend the number, during which 2 additional damages occurred and an extra 51 million KRW was drained.

In this way, additional damages caused through the 5 telephone numbers whose suspension was delayed this year totaled 12 cases and 136.9 million KRW.

It has been identified that current procedures affect the delays in suspending telephone numbers.

Currently, victims must go through a process of filling out and submitting a phishing crime damage report form, directly attaching supporting materials such as screenshots of call records, and requesting the National Police Agency's Telecommunication-Based Financial Fraud Integrated Response Center to suspend the telephone number.

The National Police Agency explained in its data that there are cases where it takes two or more days to suspend use due to reasons such as delayed in-person attendance by victims.

Regarding this, Representative Park Jung-hyun stated that because phone use can only be suspended after victims visit in person and prepare the documents, additional damages using the same method occur even during those few days. She emphasized that the procedure should be improved so that phone use can be suspended first based solely on supporting materials like call records, with documents supplemented later.

The scale of damages from five types of phishing crimes, including voice phishing and romance scams, reached 1.4668 trillion KRW last year alone.

In the first half of this year, damages amounting to 413.1 billion KRW occurred.

Converted to a daily average, this is approximately 2.28 billion KRW.

The active regions of phishing organizations are also showing a trend of shifting toward overseas bases.

According to police data, an organization that operated from overseas bases in Hangzhou and Dalian, China, from 2017 to 2024, causing 1,923 cases of damage totaling approximately 151.1 billion KRW, was uncovered, and 77 suspects were arrested.

Subsequently, from 2025 to 2026, an organization operating from a base in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was identified as having caused 382 cases of damage totaling approximately 53.2 billion KRW.

Representative Park emphasized that as the bases of phishing crimes are shifting to Southeast Asia, an international cooperative investigation system must also be newly established.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.