Painful

Shandong Province police and telecom companies have been heavily criticized for their failure to stop a rampant cellphone scam that reportedly led to the deaths of three college students. Scammers would allegedly call college students with illicitly obtained personal information, eventually tricking some victims into remitting their tuition fees. Given that many of the victims were from poorer households, this blow was too much to bear. Two victims reportedly died from heart attacks shortly after hearing the news, and another committed suicide. The police have since caught all of the suspects involved in these three scams. Netizens, however, questioned why the three students had to die before authorities took serious action to find the perpetrators.