Pervasive online frauds expose multiple loopholes

Fraud, like theft, is as old as human history. But in this internet age when information, especially personal information, flows freely fraudsters have become more "skillful". The more technology advances, the easier it becomes for fraudsters to cheat people. For example, a fraudster can send a message to tens of thousands of people at the same time with a single click of the mouse.

But were it not for Xu Yuyu, a college-bound student in Linyi, Shandong province who died recently of a cardiac attack after losing her tuition fees of about $1,500 to a phone fraud, and the attention that her poor family drew, the case would have gone unnoticed like many other small cases that go unreported.

Chinese people lose hundreds of millions of yuan in telecom frauds every year. And some towns in China have become infamous for phone scam gangs.