Voice phishing scams impersonating the Korean Embassy in the United States are on the rise again, requiring special caution.
Mr. A, a businessman in Annandale and a resident of Laurel, Maryland, recently received a phone call purporting to be from the embassy. Mr. A said, “The caller was a man who said, ‘Documents have arrived from the Korean court.’ When I asked what they were, he said he couldn’t confirm them over the phone.” Mr.
A added, “I told him I was near Washington, D.C., and would visit in person, but he instructed me to come to the second floor of the embassy. I found it odd that they told me to come to the embassy instead of the consulate, but I had several concerns, including a possible property tax issue in Korea, so I decided to visit the embassy.” However, when he explained his reason at the information desk on the first floor of the embassy, an employee told him, “This is all a voice phishing scam.”
Mr. A said, “I was shocked for a moment. I thought, ‘If I hadn’t gone in person that day, I might have been asked to remit money later.'”
Cases like this have been popping up in the Korean community in the Washington area recently. At a consulate general in Washington’s traveling consular business event held at the Washington Korean Community Center in Alexandria on the 10th, consulate staff told a reporter from this newspaper, “Embassy impersonation and voice phishing are on the rise these days,” and “There’s even a story about a $60,000 wire transfer through voice phishing.”
Consul Kim Bong-ju said, “Voice phishing was particularly severe last year, and it continues to occur throughout the year. Voice phishing cases are being reported not only in the Washington area but also at other embassies in the U.S., and there are cases where people actually send wire transfers and suffer losses.”
Consul Kim added, “We continue to receive calls asking for confirmation regarding the authenticity of voice phishing scams impersonating the embassy.”
According to a notice on the website of the Korean Embassy in the United States, there are instances of scammers impersonating embassy or consulate staff and deceiving recipients by calling them with information from the Korean National Police Agency, the Ministry of Justice (Supreme Prosecutors’ Office), or the Financial Supervisory Service.
Typical examples include: luring recipients to fake websites claiming to check their criminal records, stealing their personal information and then inducing them to send money; spoofing phone numbers from the Ministry of Justice or the Immigration Office, claiming their passports have been stolen or invalidated, and requesting personal information; and impersonating the administrator of the Overseas Koreans Agency’s 365 Civil Affairs Portal using commercial email addresses.
The Korean Embassy in the United States urges, “Neither Korean nor U.S. public institutions directly request or verify personal information over the phone or online. Please do not panic and never respond to such requests.”
The Embassy also emphasizes the following: Do not open emails from government agencies using commercial email addresses (e.g., Gmail, Naver), be suspicious of passwords or other personal information requests, verify the authenticity of the website, and avoid clicking on links from websites of unknown origin