Just days after Hong Kong announced enhanced policing of telemarketers who annoy people with pre-recorded telemarketing telephone messages using a "missed call" tactic, China's Ministry of Information Industry says it too is now probing these activities.

These telephone calls refer to those that ring only once before a mobile phone user picks it up so as to make the user believe that the user has missed a phone call. when the user calls back the number, they will be charged high fees.

MII says it will soon publish its investigation results. A representative from MII disclosed that MII has convened relevant telecom operators in China for a discussion of the issue and asked the billing center of the mobile operators to issue a report on the phone numbers being used for these exploits. Most of the illegal numbers used to make the calls are prefixed with "15" and mainly come from Guangdong Province and Fujian Province.

In Hong Kong, telemarketers can be subject to the regulations under the new Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance which started on December 22, 2007 if they engage in these types of annoyances.

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