Recently, a Shenzhen resident lost over 50,000RMB (US$7,264) after his smartphone was “locked” for no reason, according to a Zaker report.

The resident, surnamed He, said that his phone had been “locked” for no reason and all of his attempts to unlock it failed. 

When he checked his smartphone the next day, he was surprised to find that all of the data on his phone had been erased.

What's more? Someone had used his account to pay 13 online shopping bills for a laptop, a smartphone, a mouse and other products that cost him over 20,000RMB.

He called the shopping website’s customer service hotline and canceled the orders. 

But then he found that someone had also borrowed 32,000 yuan from the website and 26,000RMB from a Shenzhen-based finance company on his behalf, and the money being transferred to his bank account by lenders was later transferred away by someone.

According to Shenzhen police, the suspects must have obtained He’s name, ID number, bank card number and phone number by illegal means and cracked the password of his phone’s cloud service account to make his phone number an auxiliary number of their phone number.

After the suspects activated the “data erase” function on his phone’s cloud service account, his phone was powered off automatically. 

Then all of the verification codes supposed to be sent to his phone were sent to the suspects’ phone, which allowed them to use his accounts to buy things or borrow money online.

According to the police, a suspect bought people’s e-bank accounts and other personal information from illegal sources and hired two other suspects as technicians by offering them drugs.

• Check with telecom operators as soon as possible if your mobile phones are locked or restored to factory settings for no reason.

• Change your passwords sometimes.

• Complicate your passwords with at least 15 digits.