A young woman on Monday fell victim to a phone scam purporting to be an Alipay staff member, and was cheated out of 273,000 patacas, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Wai Lok said during a regular press conference yesterday.
According to Ho, the victim, a non-local resident, received the call at 4 p.m. on Monday, during which the “Alipay staff” asked the victim to log in to a web link to update her identity information on the pretext of “deactivating her Alipay account”. Ho added that on the request of the staff who claimed to be “safeguarding the use of her funds”, the victim then also transferred all her savings from her mainland bank account to another mainland bank account designated by the staff, resulting in a loss of 245,000 yuan, equivalent to about 273,000 patacas.
The victim only reported the case to the Judiciary Police five hours after the call, Ho noted.
2 elderly victims lose 48,700 patacas in SMS phishing
Meanwhile, the Judiciary Police received two more SMS phishing reports involving a local telecommunications company, with two victims, both elderly, losing a total of 48,700 patacas.
According to the spokesman, two victims – a man and a woman – received fake text messages last Thursday and on Monday respectively, claiming that the bonus points in their local account would soon expire, and requesting them to redeem the bonus points as soon as possible, or else the bonus points would be cancelled after the expiry date. Ho noted that the victims then followed the instructions and clicked on a website link attached to the SMS to enter their personal credit card information and the verification code provided by their bank, resulting in a loss of 5.53 million won, equivalent to about 32,500 patacas, and 2.8 million won, equivalent to about 16,200 patacas, respectively.
Ho said that the two victims were not aware of the scams until they received a text message from their bank about spending money in Korean Won.
Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Wai Lok (left) and Public Security Police (PSP) spokesman Wong Wai Chon address yesterday’s regular press conference at the PSP press room in Zape. – Photo: Yuki Lei
