The Ministry of Information Industry and the Ministry of Public Security have given instructions to the two major mobile communications operators, China Mobile and China Unicom, to punish fraudulent SMS.

China Mobile and China Unicom have been asked to urge all its users to report SMS that ask for postage and income tax payment before receiving the award to the public security departments. Senders condemned for passing out illegal short messages will be severely punished under the Telecommunication Law.

The Ministry of Information Industry gave mobile operators and SPs two weeks, from June 15th to June 30th, to check their systems for this scam. Starting in July until the end of 2004, the Telecommunication Bureau will conduct comprehensive inspections on all short message service providers in hopes of ending SMS fraudulent dealings.