Gunsan Attorney Recommendation | Defending a Client Involved in Voice Phishing to a Fine

The client, who resides in Gunsan, had a strong interest in investing and engaged in various investment activities.

In the course of this, the client received an explanation about high-return investments from an unidentified person met in a stock-related open chat room.

The unidentified person stated that the client could be paid the investment principal and returns, stated that transaction records were needed in order to withdraw the returns, and requested the client's account information.

Without much suspicion, the client provided his own account, account number, password, and other details.

However, the unidentified person used the client's account to commit voice phishing fraud, and the client was implicated in 🔗voice phishing charges and was indicted.

A 🔗violation of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act refers to committing a crime by transferring, acquiring, lending, keeping, delivering, or distributing an access medium such as a debit card.

The Electronic Financial Transactions Act strictly prohibits the following acts.

-Transferring or acquiring an access medium
-Receiving an access medium on loan, or keeping, delivering, or distributing it, while receiving, demanding, or promising consideration
-Receiving an access medium on loan or lending it, or keeping, delivering, or distributing it, with the purpose of using it for a crime or knowing that it will be so used
-Using an access medium as the object of a pledge
-Brokering, mediating, or advertising the above acts, or soliciting them while receiving, demanding, or promising consideration

As with the client in the case above, even a person who did not take part in the voice phishing may be punished merely for transferring an access medium.

A violation of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act may be punished by imprisonment for not more than 5 years or a fine of not more than 30 million won.

The sentencing factors for a violation of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act are as follows.

-If the person has a hearing or speech disability
-If the person is in a state of diminished mental capacity
-If the person voluntarily surrenders, blows the whistle, or makes a complete and voluntary disclosure of the full scope of the offense
-If the risk of follow-up crimes did not materialize due to a voluntary suspension of transactions, a loss report, or similar measures

The Gunsan attorney argued that entrusting the temporary use of an access medium does not constitute a "transfer" of the access medium as defined in the Electronic Financial Transactions Act.

∙A case in which the court held that, where the defendant was deceived by an unidentified person and handed over a card intending to let it be used temporarily for that purpose during the loan repayment period, this did not constitute a "transfer" of the access medium under the Electronic Financial Transactions Act (Supreme Court, October 27, 2022, 2022Do8084)

The Gunsan attorney argued that the client had merely been deceived by the unidentified person and provided his own account information, without receiving any other consideration.

∙If the defendant handed over a card after being deceived by an unidentified person, it is difficult to conclude that the defendant lent the access medium in return for a loan, or that the defendant had such awareness at the time of handing over the card in this case. An intangible expected benefit of being able to obtain a loan in the future does not constitute "consideration" as defined in the Electronic Financial Transactions Act. (Supreme Court, July 28, 2022, 2022Do5903)