People in Hong Kong lost a total of HK$5.02 billion (US$644.9 million) in scams in the first eight months of the year, a 14.5 per cent decrease year on year, with students remaining targets, according to police.
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The number of cases dropped by 1 per cent to 28,379 during the period, with 184 local and 86 mainland Chinese tertiary students duped in telephone scams. In one case, a student lost more than HK$10 million in a scam involving the impersonation of government officials.
Responding to a question by lawmaker Duncan Chiu, security minister Chris Tang Ping-keung on Wednesday wrote that police had noticed a new trend of students falling victim to telephone scams involving fake food delivery platforms that sent phishing SMS messages.
Tang said the victims were instructed to call a fake customer service hotline that tricked them into paying money to cancel orders.
“The police’s Anti-Deception Coordination Centre has immediately stepped up dissemination of anti-scam alerts on websites and social media platforms, urging the public not to call back by clicking on the telephone numbers provided in the SMS messages,” Tang wrote.
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“If in doubt, they should contact the official customer service centre of the food delivery platforms for verification. They are also encouraged to make good use of police’s ‘Scameter+’ and ‘Anti-Scam Helpline’.”