Telecom companies must do more to combat fraudsters

Xu Yuyu [Photo/IC]

Following some recent high-profile telephone fraud cases, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has said telecom enterprises must fulfill their social responsibilities. Beijing News commented:

Xu Yuyu, an 18-year-old girl from East China's Shandong province, died of a heart attack after being defrauded of all the money her family had saved to pay for her university tuition fees.

Days later Cai Shuyan, a 19-year-old girl from South China's Guangdong province, committed suicide after being similarly defrauded of her tuition fees.

In another recent case, an unidentified faculty member from Tsinghua University in Beijing was swindled out of 17.6 million yuan ($2.6 million) by telephone fraudsters.

These cases and others have put the telecom companies in the media spotlight. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which is in charge of them, said on Monday that although most of the telecom enterprises behave in a proper manner "a few of them have failed in their supervision responsibilities".

But the real problem is far more serious than that. Some telecom companies have not implemented the law that requires real-name registration for users, which is illegal. This is a legal affair and the telecom companies concerned should be made to pay for that.

Some defend the telecom monopolies by saying they lack the technology to eliminate fraud. However, that defense is rather weak, because media reports show that some telecom companies have put leading local officials on red lists to make sure their numbers are immune to spam.

The ministry also said it will require telecom companies to better implement the real-name registration for all users, and those that fail to do this will not be able to expand. This is a good move, and we hope they will do more to push telecom companies to combat spam and fraud.