By SCMP’s Asia desk

Copyright scmp

As South Korea steps up efforts to protect its citizens from online fraud, celebrities in the country are warning against increasingly sophisticated phishing and phone scams by relating their personal encounters with such cases.
Entertainer Ji Seok-jin said one of his celebrity acquaintances lost 300 million won (US$213,000) to a voice phishing scam, The Korea Times newspaper reported on Thursday.
“They’re very smart, but they were told to click a website link – and once they did, it looked completely legitimate. They’re the kind of person you’d think would never fall for it,” Ji said on an episode of the YouTube show Jodongari on Monday.
Ji also had his own close call. “About 15 years ago, someone impersonating [South Korean comedian] Kim Gu-ra sent me a text saying: ‘Bro, it’s me, Gu-ra. Please send me 2 million won.’ I almost fell for it,” he said, as quoted by The Chosun Daily newspaper.
Luckily, something raised his suspicions enough to call Kim back. “I called right away to confirm, and it turned out to be fake. That was the early days of voice phishing.”
Ji appeared on the episode along with actors from Wavve Dramax’s latest crime drama Punishment, which explores voice phishing and deepfakes.
Punishment actor Ji Seung-hyun noted that voice phishing damages in South Korea totalled around 800 billion Korean won from January to July.
Actor Bae Jung-nam confessed that he was scammed out of 4.5 million won when shopping for a second-hand item online. “I told the scammer, ‘I know I’ve been conned – if you return even half, I won’t report you,’ but he just left the chat,” Bae said on the entertainment show My Little Old Boy in February.

Veteran actress Lee Mi-sook now avoids online transactions completely after suffering a huge loss, according to the report in The Korea Times. “My bank account was drained – I lost between 50 million and 60 million won. The hacker even made card payments through my phone for four hours overnight,” she said.
On Thursday, local police issued a warning that scammers were using last Friday’s data centre fire that knocked out many online government services as a pretext for getting victims to click on phishing links.
“If a text message guiding you to an alternative site or to reinstall an app includes a URL [internet address] or link, do not click it under any circumstances and report it,” they said, as quoted in the Chosun Biz news website.
In a case cited by the police, a scammer called a frequent online shopper, pretending to offer a refund. When the shopper accessed the refund link, an image appeared saying: “Service has been suspended due to a National Information Resources fire.”
The scammer then sent a malicious app file, claiming it was an app used during the service suspension, and asked the shopper to download it. Sensing something was wrong, the shopper reported it to the police.
Amid a surge in such scams, a centre combating voice phishing extended its operations around the clock on September 17.
When the centre opened in October 2023, it received an average of 866 reports a day. That daily average rose to 1,033 cases last year and 1,755 cases in the first half of this year, The Chosun Daily reported.
Counsellors told the newspaper they were waging a “war against crime”, with no time to rest. Each counsellor handles an average of 60 to 70 calls per day.