A MAN has been harassed by continuing phone calls from an unknown number since the middle of last month.
The man, Zhang, received calls every minute of each day, when a recorded voice says his phone number had been monitored by the public security bureau, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported. Zhang has not dialed the number.
The telecommunications company and the police, however, told Zhang that they could do nothing about the nuisance calls although police offered to install software on his mobile phone to stop the nuisance calls.
The public security bureau denied monitoring mobile phones.
Zhang said that he received a call from an unidentified person last month, claiming his son had been kidnapped, even giving the correct name of his son.
Zhang rebuked the caller and hung up. He later called his son s school to learn his son was safe.
However, the continuous harassment began after that call.
A China Mobile public relations spokeswoman in Shenzhen said details of the nuisance number could not be obtained because there was no reply to testing dialing.
Similar incidents occur usually involving automatic Internet dialing software, according to an online search by the paper.
Paid services were available on the Internet to keep calling a phone number at designated time intervals.
If you want to make nonstop calls to a phone number for 14 hours each week, 50 yuan (US$7.55) is enough, the paper said.
Either blackmailing or revenge was behind a harassing phone call, according to the report.
There was no specific regulation concerning harassing phone calls, said Ou Xiangfu, a lawyer with Shenzhen Xingchen Law Firm.
Although a harasser could be subject to custody no longer than 15 days according to public security regulations, the punishment was too light to be a deterrent to offenders, Ou said. (Li Hao)
