Chinese scammers target kids with promise of extra gaming hours

Fraudsters in China have targeted a child with promises of allowing them to get around the nation's time limits on playing computer games – for a mere $560, according to the nation's cyberspace administration. Yesterday the CAC detailed some of the 12,000 acts of online fraud perpetrated against minors it handled this year. …

[BOFH in Training]

Since China tracks alot of things that goes on within their country-wide intranet (internet), and since they are pushing people registering for China based services with real name / ID, etc, how long before a fraudster within China is found and punished?

Sounds very stupid of the fraudster unless he/she uses a false ID and only sticks to free wifi (assuming it's available without having to login with own ID).

[veti]

China should be an instructive test case for the rest of the world, a demonstration of what can happen if you push Internet regulation to their limit. It would be worth knowing, for reference.

Unfortunately, for it to fulfil that role, we would need to have reports we can trust from inside the system. I don't see any plausible way of getting those.

[doublelayer]

With this scale of fraud, the fraudster is probably not that advanced. However, China's law enforcement system is not as advanced on regular crime as it is for those things the government doesn't like. If someone wanted to get this scammer, they are likely to have the tools needed to do it, but there's a chance they won't put that much effort into it. Scammers doing more than finding individual children also have ways to evade consequences, just as they do in other countries. You'd think that a dictatorship with a virtually unlimited budget for surveillance and general 1984-ishness should be able to prevent or at least immediately catch criminals, but China hasn't had that history so far.

[Sub 20 Pilot]

You seem to have accurately described law enforcement in the West or at least the UK and US, as well as China.

[doublelayer]

Yes, I think a lot of countries' general police would look at this scammer, say "A couple kids robbed of medium-to-small amounts that have now been returned by the credit cards, not simple to identify right now, not of major concern". I'd like it if they took a more active approach, but wouldn't count on that happening.