Taiwan says its two-year crackdown on phone and internet fraud is working overall, but one type of scam — fake online shop posts and one-page storefronts — is exploding, which is bad news for small farmers and shoppers.

• Since the anti-fraud task force started two years ago, monthly fraud cases are down 43% and money lost by victims is down 71%.
• Fake investment scams, the biggest category, collapsed — cases down 83% and losses down 89%.
• Scam posts and one-page shopping sites went the other way: cases up 56% and money lost up 733%.
• Each of these scams is small, making up under a tenth of daily fraud losses, but they hit everyday goods like food, farm produce and gadgets, and wreck the reputations of the small sellers whose names get faked.
• Blocking access to Xiaohongshu, which refused to cooperate with government security requests, cut scams on that platform by 80%.

Outlook: The government is drafting a new two-year anti-fraud plan for 2027–2028 that leans on AI and partnerships with farmers, traditional markets and small businesses.