Protect people from phone scams

Several years ago, many people received text messages telling them that large purchases had been charged to their debit or credit cards in other parts of the country. They were given a number to call if they had questions, which of course they did.

I received such a message during the National Day holiday one year and called the number, because the banks were closed. I grew suspicious when I found myself talking to someone speaking Cantonese about a purchase I was supposed to have made in Taiyuan, Shanxi province.

It was a scam, of course, as I soon discovered by checking it out on the Web. But many people lost tens of thousands of yuan apiece after following the scammers' instructions to put money in a "secure account".