Gwangju Police Warn of Serious Risks in 'Low-Interest Debt Refinancing Loans'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] #. Mr. A received a call on the 30th of last month from an employee of a certain savings bank offering to refinance his loan at a lower interest rate than his current loan. Mr. A provided his existing loan information and applied for a new loan through a fake bank app sent by the savings bank employee. Shortly after, Mr. A received a message stating, "Applying for another loan before repaying the current loan is a breach of contract. If you do not repay the loan immediately, a penalty will be imposed." Fearful, he handed over a total of 67.5 million won in cash over four installments. However, this was a voice phishing scam.

The Gwangju Police have issued a serious warning to citizens as the ‘low-interest refinancing loan type’ voice phishing scams have become rampant.

On the 13th, the Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency announced that it held a secondary financial sector working meeting in collaboration with the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Gwangju-Jeonnam branch.

At the meeting, 17 representatives from the FSS and secondary financial institutions including savings banks, capital companies, and loan businesses attended. They discussed in depth measures to prevent damage during the loan execution process, such as sending warning texts about voice phishing to existing loan customers, using checklists for damage diagnosis when applying for new loans, improving related systems, and establishing cooperative frameworks for police reporting.

From January to July, the scale of voice phishing damage in Gwangju reached a total of 400 cases amounting to approximately 7.8 billion won, showing an increasing trend.

The number of cases rose from 205 in 2018 to 358 last year, and 400 cases occurred up to last month this year.

In particular, the ‘low-interest refinancing loan type’ voice phishing scam, which involves impersonating financial institutions and deceiving victims into repaying existing loans to steal the funds, accounts for 83% (331 cases) of the total.

The Gwangju Police plan to actively conduct tailored prevention campaigns based on analysis of victim cases, and will also thoroughly crack down by tracking and arresting not only the collectors of the stolen funds but also the masterminds behind the scams.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.