Elderly woman falls victim to pension scam

The one-off pension of an 88-year-old woman in Yuechi, a county in Sichuan province, worth nearly 100,000 yuan ($16,390) has been falsely claimed, Chengdu Economic Daily reported.

Zhou Weiqun retired from a textiles plant in Yuechi in October 1979. The following June, the plant began paying her a retirement pension of nearly 34 yuan a month but she stopped receiving this in April 1981 because the loss-making plant was closed.

As she was eligible for a pension from the county social security bureau in line with a new policy, Zhou applied in 2004. But when told she had to pay a premium of 11,000 yuan at first to receive the monthly pension, she stooped her application, saying this was too much.

Recently, her son, Zhou Xiaoping, learned that his mother was entitled to a retirement pension because she had stopped work before her plant went bankrupt.

But when he visited the county social security bureau on Oct 25 he was told that Zhou Weiqun had died and that her family had received a one-off pension for her in 2009.

An angry Zhou Weiqun told Chengdu Economic Daily: "I have been supported by my son as I have no retirement pension. Somebody falsely claimed my money, saying I had died."

The bureau found that someone took the money in her name, using her photograph. But the culprit's identification card number is different to Zhou Weiqun's.

Police are investigating.