Photo: VCG

A 12-year-old girl from Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province who had been swindled by a gang turned the tables on the fraudsters by pretending to be a bank staffer and getting them to reveal their personal information, reported The Paper on Sunday.

The girl, named Xiaoxue, was swindled out of 1,300 yuan ($184.08) by someone who claimed he would reward her more money to celebrate his birthday if she transferred money to him via WeChat.

However, as soon as the transaction was completed, the swindler blocked Xiaoxue.

Though angry, the girl remained calm and then found a telephone number in the swindler's WeChat account and called the number, pretending to be a bank customer service staffer and telling the swindler that something abnormal had occurred on his WeChat account.

She asked the swindler to tell her his ID number and other personal information so she could help him to check his WeChat account.

Through the information given by the swindler over the 40-minute phone call, Xiaoxue obtained several clues and reported to the local police.

With the clues, the police tracked down nine suspects who was suspected of committing over 20 frauds involving more than 30,000 yuan ($4285).