SHANGHAI: If you receive a phone call from the "telecommunications department", "the bank" or even "the police" telling you that your bank account has been hacked and you should transfer all your money to a safer account, beware - it is just another way for fraudsters to rob you of all your hard earned money.

Between September and November, the city's police received reports of more than 500 such telephone frauds, which duped various unassuming residents of over 20 million yuan ($2.9 million).

A woman surnamed Xu had no idea she'd be left penniless when she received a phone call from a man claiming to be from the "China Construction Bank" in September, saying someone had gained her personal information and was likely to withdraw money from her account.