Rise in telecom fraud rings alarm bells

Telephone scams are a growing problem in China, with even financial experts falling prey to sophisticated schemes. For some victims, though, the consequences are far more severe than a simple monetary loss, as Zhang Yi reports.

Last month, Fan Yin-gui hanged himself in a residential building in Qin'an county, Gansu province. He left no suicide note, just a cryptic messages crawled in dust at the scene: "My death has nothing to do with my wife, it is about swindlers."

The day before Fan took his own life, the 44-year-old received a bogus phone call, supposedly from the police, which led him to transfer 230,000 yuan ($35,000) to a fake bank account set up under the name of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.