14 locals fell for same SMS fraud
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lou Chan Fai said during a regular press conference yesterday that six female victims were separately scammed out of a total of 2.5 million patacas between them in fake police scams.
According to Lou, the victims received phone calls from individuals claiming to be staff members of “China Telecom” and mainland police officers. These calls occurred in the last two months. The callers made preposterous allegations, claiming that a significant number of fraudulent messages had been sent from the victims’ respective mainland phone numbers.
Subsequently, the victims followed the scammers’ instructions and transferred money to designated bank accounts for an “asset review” process. Four victims under the age of 30 lost 280,000 patacas, HK$124,000, 266,000 patacas and 350,000 patacas respectively, while two local middle-aged women lost 1.4 million patacas and 157,000 patacas respectively.
Meanwhile, Lou noted that 14 local residents, nine females and five males, separately fell for another type of SMS fraud recently. They received SMS messages purported to be from a telecoms company, claiming that their reward points were about to expire. The messages included a link that they were instructed to click on.
The residents then clicked on the link and proceeded to fill in credit card information and verification codes. It was only later that the victims realised their credit cards had been unknowingly charged, which ranged from 5,000 to 37,600 patacas, resulting in a total loss of 231,000 patacas among the 14 victims.
