A local man reported to the Judiciary Police (PJ) last Friday that he was cheated out of HK$5,200 when selling his game account (遊戲帳戶), Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Leng Kam Lon said at a press conference on Wednesday.
According to Leng, the victim told the police that he posted a message last Tuesday via a game sharing group in a social media app that he was selling his game account. A man responded by saying that he wanted to buy it for HK$5,200.
Afterwards, the man sent the link of a transaction app to the victim to proceed with the transaction, saying that he would remit HK$5,200 to the victim through this app. After the victim had opened an account on the app, the man told him that he had remitted the money. When the victim logged into the link and checked whether the money had been received, the app’s purported “customer service” sent him a message claiming that the money had been received and that his game account had been sold. However, due to system malfunctioning, his account had been “frozen” and the victim was told to pay HK$5,200 to “unfreeze” his account, after which he would receive all the payments in return.
Leng said that the victim remitted the money to a bank account in Hong Kong. The purported “customer service” told the victim that they had not received the money and told him to wait. As the victim never received any updates, he checked with the bank which confirmed that the money had already been credited into that account. The victim tried to contact the “customer service” but to no avail so he reported the case to the police.
