Online shopping division added to fight rising internet fraud
To deal with a sharp rise in internet fraud, an online shopping division has been established as part of the Office of the Judicial Administration Commission. The office was officially created Tuesday having been published in The Royal Gazette on Monday. The OJAC observe that the world lives more and more online, and the Covid-19 pandemic has only further fueled online growth, with the predictable results of a rise in online fraud.
Instagram and Facebook are the top sources for online fraud but about 2000 complaints are filed each month overall on a hotline run by the Digital Economy and Society. The OJAC decided with this amount of caseloads, a separate department was needed to handle online shopping complaints.
Now that the online shopping division has been launched, all relevant pending cases will be handed over to the department to assist victims who have fallen prey to online scams and to enforce consumer rights on the internet. Cases that are already underway in the consumer court will remain there though, and will not be handed over to the new online shopping division.
The division will also focus on moving the prosecution of online fraud online itself, with the ability for people to file complaints online and for prosecution to be carried out mainly online, though good old-fashioned written report on paper will still be allowed for people filing complaints.
And now that the online shopping division has been created, staffed, and taking on a caseload, a new chief judge will be assigned to the department. That judge will appoint judges to the division who have experience and knowledge in cybercrime and online scams. The system is set up, however, to allow judges from outside the division to preside over online cases when appropriate.
The chief judge, along with the launch date, working process, and division budget, is still being nailed down, and will be announced at a later date as the division begins to take over the responsibility of online shopping complaint cases.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
