By Zheng Sisi

The Putuo District People's Court is warning banks to strengthen the supervision of their credit card sales after one of their contract employees used a loophole in the system to cheat Chinese banks of some 540,000 yuan ($82,026) in the span of a year.

The ex-employee surnamed Lu, who had been hired by a Chinese bank to promote its credit card to potential clients, illegally purchased personal information from a human resources company and used the details of 49 people to apply for 82 individual credit cards.

"We have issued a warning to banks to tighten controls on people that they hire to look after credit card sales and pro-motional activities, who are in a position to take advantage of information that could be used in potentially dangerous ways," Sun Chao, a press officer for the Putuo District People's Court, told the Global Times Monday.

Because most of the money he cheated cannot be retrieved, Lu was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in jail and fined 100,000 yuan ($15,190), said the court, adding that such cases are being taken seriously as credit card fraud becomes a growing problem.

In 2008, Lu bought the private details of 49 credit card clients and used the information to apply for 82 separate credit cards at six Chinese banks.

He later used the credit cards to cash out the funds in his hometown city of Fuzhou.