My Account Might Be Used as a Dummy Account: What Should I Do?

If you suspect that your account has been used as a dummy account by a fraud syndicate, you should immediately take the following actions to mitigate the damage and prepare for potential upcoming legal proceedings.

1. Report the Passbook and ATM Card Lost
   Before your account is officially designated as a suspicious account, reporting your passbook and ATM card as lost will not only prevent anyone from continuing to deposit money into the account and stop the fraud ring from withdrawing ill-gotten gains, but it will also help prove that you truly had no intention of assisting the fraud ring in committing fraud.[1] Follow these steps to report them lost:
   
   • Temporarily Report the Passbook and ATM Card Lost via Telephone
     To temporarily report them lost at the post office, call the customer service center voice hotline at 0800-700-365; if calling from a mobile phone, please dial the paid number (04)2354-2030 instead. For other banks, please check their respective lost-reporting hotlines or customer service centers.
     Be sure to call these designated lost-reporting or customer service hotlines because calls to these lines are recorded, whereas general branch telephone lines are not. When processing a temporary report of loss, bank personnel will ask for some basic personal information, such as your date of birth, ID number, and mobile phone number. It does not matter if you do not remember your account number; as long as you provide your basic information, the bank clerk can look it up for you.
     Filing a temporary loss report by phone is a crucial step. Many people do not know that temporary loss reports can be filed even on non-business days, and instead anxiously wait for business days to visit the counter, missing the prime opportunity for immediate reporting. When reporting, please make a note of the time and phone number you used to contact them, and ideally the name of the customer service representative as well, to facilitate later evidence presentation.
     
   • File a Formal Loss Report Over-the-Counter
     On a business day at the bank or post office, file a formal loss report over the counter. To file a formal report, please bring identification documents (generally two forms of ID are required, such as your national ID card and health insurance card) and your account seal. If you have also lost your seal, you will need to apply for a seal change, for which you simply need to prepare your identification documents.
     
2. File a Police Report
   If your account has been used as a dummy account by a fraud ring, you must report it to the police and "must" obtain a three-part police report receipt (報案三聯單). After reporting, try your best to preserve and provide any relevant information about the fraud ring to the police, such as contact phone numbers, newspaper job advertisements and their dates, and online communication logs from Skype, Line, etc. On one hand, this creates an initial police record and preserves preliminary evidence[2] to corroborate that you genuinely had no intention of assisting the fraud ring; on the other hand, if the police manage to crack down on the fraud ring later, they can summon members of the syndicate to explain how they deceived people to obtain accounts, which can be used to fight for an acquittal[3]. However, many citizens have reported that the police refuse to accept such reports. Current excuses heard include the following:
   
   • No victim has reported the crime yet, so you cannot file a report.
   • A victim has already reported it, and you might be a criminal suspect, so you cannot file a report.
   • There is no need to file a report; transferring you directly as a criminal suspect is faster.
   • Police officers need rest on Saturdays and Sundays; come back to file the report on Monday.
     In the event that the police refuse to accept your report, at least ask them on the spot to check the status of the situation—for instance, whether a scam phone number has already been reported—or at least leave a record of filing an informational record (備案, which records that the incident occurred, though the police will not handle it as a criminal case). Alternatively, use other reporting methods, such as:
   
   • Calling 110 to report, which will have a call recording.
   • Reporting online, which leaves an internet record.
   • Calling the 165 Anti-Fraud Hotline or reporting via the 165 Anti-Fraud website, both of which keep records.
     In short, try your best to leave some form of record. Why is it important to leave a record? Because some judges judge whether a party's account was truly exploited by a fraud syndicate based on whether they filed a report and showed concern[4]. Therefore, if you encounter police officers rejecting a case, do not simply let it go; make sure to leave a police report record by all means possible.
   Finally, the police are actually "not allowed to refuse" to accept citizens' reports. If you encounter this situation, you can submit feedback through the National Police Agency website's "Commissioner's Mailbox," detailing which police precinct or station, at what time, and which officer refused to accept the report, and ask the National Police Agency to hold the relevant personnel administratively accountable.
   
3. Seek Assistance from a Lawyer
   Generally speaking, whenever there is a possibility of facing litigation, seeking assistance from a lawyer is recommended. Because lawyers possess legal expertise, they are better equipped to understand how to prepare for upcoming legal proceedings, and during the investigation and trial stages, they know how to make arguments in order to secure an acquittal or the client's best interests. Some individuals accidentally say the wrong thing and are consequently deemed by the court to have inconsistent statements and are thus branded as liars, or they lose their lawsuits because they do not know how to argue evidence favorable to themselves during the proceedings. Having a lawyer's assistance helps prevent such situations.
   
   • Find a Lawyer Yourself
     Many people do not know how to find a good lawyer. Regarding this, you can refer to the "Judgment Retrieval Section" of the Judges Act Combat Manual, where you can use the legal data retrieval system to check a lawyer's win rate, thereby finding a lawyer who better understands how to win lawsuits.
   • Seek Assistance from the Legal Aid Foundation
     If individuals face financial difficulties and cannot afford to hire a lawyer on their own, they can seek assistance from local branches of the Legal Aid Foundation (LAF). The Legal Aid Foundation provides pro bono lawyer assistance to individuals whose financial resources fall below a certain threshold. It is worth noting that some citizens may experience communication issues with LAF, leading them to mistakenly believe they do not meet the financial eligibility standards for aid, or they wish to apply for an assigned lawyer but LAF only approves assistance for drafting legal documents without court representation. If you encounter such situations, you can call the JRF Advocacy Center at (02)25421958, and JRF staff will help clarify your situation and assist in communicating with LAF.
4. Gather Evidence Yourself
   Aside from reporting your passbook and ATM card lost, filing a police report, and seeking a lawyer's help, the final and extremely important step is to gather evidence on your own as soon as possible. Please note that what is discussed below is the collection of genuine evidence; some fraud syndicates instruct people to commit perjury—for instance, when a citizen's account was stolen under the guise of a job search, the syndicate might instruct them to claim it was lost after discovering the scam. Such an approach is ill-advised because: fraud syndicates use the same methods to instruct people to commit perjury, such as telling everyone to claim their passbook was lost on a scooter with the password written on a specific page. Courts try many such cases, and once they hear similar defenses repeatedly, they will no longer believe them. Therefore, it is far better to properly collect genuine evidence and tell the truth to persuade the court.
   After collecting evidence, remember to review the chronological order of events yourself, as thoroughly as possible. For example, note the content of every single phone call and what was said to the fraud ring. Use the discovered evidence to recall various details (such as whether you mailed the password together with the ATM card to the fraud syndicate, or mailed the ATM card first and provided the password later over the phone). Write down whatever you can remember immediately, and write down that you cannot remember what you have forgotten. In court, remember to speak only of matters you clearly remember; if you do not remember, state that you do not remember, and absolutely do not make things up. Otherwise, if your testimonies inadvertently turn out to be inconsistent, the court will conclude that you are lying.
   After explaining these important reminders regarding evidence collection, the following is a brief introduction to several types of evidence accepted by courts that have previously resulted in acquittals.
   
   1. Evidence to Collect in All Dummy Account Cases
      
      • Loss-reporting records[5]
      • Police report records (110, 165 anti-fraud hotline, general police station reports, etc.)[6]
      The above are used to prove that after the account was swindled away or lost, the citizen actively intended to prevent the account from being used for fraud, thereby corroborating that they truly did not intentionally provide the account to the fraud syndicate.
      
   2. Evidence to Collect When the Account Was Swindled or Borrowed by Friends and Relatives
      
      • Call logs with the friend or relative who borrowed (or swindled) the account[7]
      • Testimony from the friend or relative who borrowed (or swindled) the account[8]
   3. Evidence to Collect When the Account Was Swindled by a Fraud Syndicate
      Cases where accounts are swindled by fraud syndicates generally fall into two major categories: job-hunting scams and loan-application scams. The evidentiary directions for these two categories are explained below.
      
      • Relevant information from the initial job application or loan agency application. For instance: online job application resumes[9], recruitment advertisements posted by the fraud syndicate[10], or information left online regarding the intent to apply for a loan[11].
      • Call logs. Call logs are only retained for 6 months, so you must apply for them as soon as possible. Examples that have resulted in acquittals: call logs showing continuous outgoing calls to which the other party never answered (proving one's anxiousness to ascertain the account status)[12]; ongoing call logs made to verify loan application status after providing the account[13]; and intensive call logs during the job-hunting process[14].
      • Text messages or online chat logs. For example: online chat logs from instant messengers or MSN during job applications[15]; text messages confirming loan statuses[16]; and two months of instant messenger logs with an internet acquaintance (whose account was swindled by said acquaintance)[17].
      • Witness testimony. Ask friends or family members who know the process by which you were deceived to testify[18]; if you happen to know someone else whose account was swindled by the same fraud syndicate, you can also ask them to testify about their deception experience[19].
      • Account usage patterns. Demonstrating that the provided account was frequently used by yourself and that there was no logical reason to hand it over to a fraud syndicate[20], which can be proven by obtaining historical transaction statements for the account.
      • The defendant's own social circumstances and financial solvency. Having a normal, stable job[21] (making it unlikely they would sell an account for minor gains); lacking life experience with similar deceptive scenarios[22] (making it difficult to recognize the scam); or having intellectual or mental disabilities[23] (explaining why they were deceived or why the defendant could not realistically be expected to notice it was a scam).
      • Cases found by the court resulting in non-prosecution dispositions (judges can use the Ministry of Justice's Prosecutors Office Document Query System) where the defendant was also swindled by the same fraud syndicate using this method[24] (corroborating that one was indeed swindled via this method rather than making things up).
      • Concurrent situations where the individual's own money was also defrauded[25] (courts generally consider that if a citizen cooperates with a fraud syndicate to provide an account for profit, they would not allow themselves to be defrauded of money. If a citizen providing an account also had their own money stolen, the credibility of their account being genuinely swindled is higher).
   4. Evidence to Collect When the Account Was Lost
      The tricky part about lost accounts is that because they are lost unknowingly, the party concerned usually has little impression of the process and may not even know their account was misplaced, making it very difficult to establish a concrete direction for gathering evidence. Therefore, in cases of lost accounts, the focus of proof will be placed on explaining:
      
      • Account usage patterns. Several scenarios accepted by courts:
        • The account had long been unused, no money had been specially withdrawn from it recently, and its loss went unnoticed (the court presumes that if someone were cooperating with a fraud syndicate, they would recently withdraw all the money before handing the account over)[26].
        • The account was used frequently, reported lost quickly, and the loss of this account caused daily inconvenience[27].
        • Salary is regularly deposited into other accounts, and freezing this account would prevent the withdrawal of money in those other accounts[28].
      • An explanation of how the password was leaked. This aspect often becomes the turning point between guilt and innocence because what judges find most incomprehensible is: since passwords are created precisely to prevent others from knowing them, how did the fraud syndicate come to know your account password? Under this logic, judges will deduce that the defendant actually told the fraud syndicate the password themselves. Below are several explanations regarding password leakage that have been accepted by courts:
        • Storing the password together with the passbook or ATM card because it was temporarily not in use and out of fear of forgetting the password. Possible patterns include: writing the password on the passbook[29], or writing the password on a slip of paper and keeping it together with the ATM card inside a bag[30].
        • Possessing multiple accounts and writing the password on the passbook to avoid confusion[31].
        • The password was designed to be too easily guessed. For example, setting one's birthday as the password[32]; the password is related to the date of birth, and the courier attempted trial-and-error password guessing prior to withdrawal[33].
          In addition to explaining why the password leaked, it is best to also explain any special social circumstances you face (such as cerebral palsy or a forgetful personality) that led to the aforementioned behavior[34].
        • Your living conditions are stable, and there was simply no need to assist a fraud syndicate. For example, having a normal job, owning real estate, or having multiple savings accounts under your name[35].

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Notes

1. Having loss-reporting records does not necessarily guarantee an acquittal, but it helps in arguing for one. See: Taichung District Court 100-Year Simplified Appeal Retrial Case No. 1 Judgment; Taipei District Court 101-Year Summary Trial Case No. 2042 Criminal Judgment.
2. Having police report records does not necessarily guarantee an acquittal, but it helps in arguing for one. See: Taoyuan District Court 100-Year Simplified Appeal Retrial Case No. 1 Criminal Ruling; Taoyuan District Court 100-Year Simplified Appeal Retrial Case No. 1 Criminal Judgment.
3. Some dummy account cases resulted in acquittals precisely because the fraud syndicate was busted and syndicate members came forward to testify. See: Taipei District Court 100-Year Yi Case No. 546 Criminal Judgment; Taiwan High Court 103-Year Retrial Case No. 1 Criminal Judgment; Taichung District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 3182 Criminal Judgment.
4. See Taiwan High Court 100-Year Shang-Yi Case No. 800 Criminal Judgment. The party claimed they had filed a police report, but when the court checked the police department's reporting records, no such report by the party could be found. The court used this as grounds to conclude that the party was lying and had neglected to report, evidently colluding with the fraud syndicate.
5. Taoyuan District Court 100-Year Simplified Appeal Retrial Case No. 1 Criminal Judgment.
6. The defendant was acquitted because calling the 165 hotline preserved the audio recording at that time. See Taoyuan District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 210 Criminal Judgment; Taichung District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 400 Criminal Judgment.
7. Yilan District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 427 Criminal Judgment.
8. Taipei District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 141 Criminal Judgment; New Taipei District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 479 Criminal Judgment; New Taipei District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 93 Criminal Judgment.
9. Taipei District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 34 Criminal Judgment.
10. Taipei District Court 100-Year Yi Case No. 546 Criminal Judgment.
11. Taoyuan District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 210 Criminal Judgment.
12. Taipei District Court 98-Year Yi Case No. 1839 Criminal Judgment.
13. Hsinchu District Court 104-Year Aboriginal Yi Case No. 1 Criminal Judgment; Hsinchu District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 237 Criminal Judgment; Taichung District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 3786 Criminal Judgment.
14. Hsinchu District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 269 Criminal Judgment.
15. Hsinchu District Court 103-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 117 Criminal Judgment; Miaoli District Court 102-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 38 Criminal Judgment.
16. Hsinchu District Court 103-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 86 Criminal Judgment.
17. Kaohsiung District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 341 Criminal Judgment.
18. Taipei District Court 98-Year Yi Case No. 1839 Criminal Judgment; Taoyuan District Court 102-Year Aboriginal Yi Case No. 45 Criminal Judgment; Hsinchu District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 269 Criminal Judgment; Taichung District Court 103-Year Yi-Chi Case No. 3 Criminal Judgment.
19. Hsinchu District Court 103-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 58 Criminal Judgment.
20. Taipei District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 292 Criminal Judgment; Yilan District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 263 Criminal Judgment; Yilan District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 387 Criminal Judgment; Keelung District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 624 Criminal Judgment; Taichung District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 1677 Criminal Judgment.
21. Taipei District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 292 Criminal Judgment; Miaoli District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 770 Criminal Judgment; Taichung District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 2423 Criminal Judgment; Taichung District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 3786 Criminal Judgment.
    Additionally, in a case where the defendant suffered from Tourette syndrome, the court held that this condition already made it extremely difficult for the defendant to find a job, and they would not intentionally ruin their own trustworthiness and lose their job. See Miaoli District Court 102-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 89 Criminal Judgment.
22. Taipei District Court 100-Year Yi Case No. 546 Criminal Judgment (served only as a driver after retiring from military service); New Taipei District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 1514 Criminal Judgment (still a student and had never done similar work before); Yilan District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 263 Criminal Judgment (recently discharged from military service and had no prior experience in similar work).
23. Taipei District Court 99-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 418 Criminal Judgment; Taipei District Court 99-Year Yi Case No. 2943 Criminal Judgment; Yilan District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 387 Criminal Judgment.
24. Taichung District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 1457 Criminal Judgment; Taichung District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 122 Criminal Judgment.
25. Taipei District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 719 Criminal Judgment; Taipei District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 537 Criminal Judgment; Taipei District Court 102-Year Summary Trial Case No. 2321 Criminal Judgment; Yilan District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 135 Criminal Judgment; Hsinchu District Court 103-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 134 Criminal Judgment.
26. Taipei District Court 101-Year Yi Case No. 625 Criminal Judgment.
27. Taipei District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 23 Criminal Judgment.
28. New Taipei District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 696 Criminal Judgment.
29. Taipei District Court 102-Year Summary Trial Case No. 124 Criminal Judgment.
30. Taiwan High Court 103-Year Shang-Yi Case No. 780 Criminal Judgment.
31. Taipei District Court 103-Year Yi Case No. 23 Criminal Judgment.
32. Taipei District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 794 Criminal Judgment.
33. Keelung District Court 103-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 67 Criminal Judgment.
34. Taipei District Court 102-Year Summary Trial Case No. 124 Criminal Judgment, where the defendant had cerebral palsy and thus wrote the password on the ATM card to remind themselves; Taipei District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 794 Criminal Judgment, where the account was applied for during part-time work in student days, which is why the password was set to a birthday; Taipei District Court 97-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 458 Criminal Judgment, where the defendant had a forgetful personality and frequently lost important documents such as national ID cards and passports, with multiple reissue records; New Taipei District Court 103-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 615, where the defendant suffered from a chronic psychiatric illness, took long-term medication, and experienced memory decline.
35. Taipei District Court 102-Year Yi Case No. 794 Criminal Judgment; Taipei District Court 99-Year Yi Case No. 2217 Criminal Judgment; Taipei District Court 97-Year Simplified Appeal Case No. 458 Criminal Judgment; Taiwan High Court 103-Year Shang-Yi Case No. 780 Criminal Judgment.