A young man studying in Macau has fallen victim to a “fake police” phone scam, resulting in a loss of HK$550,000, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Chong Kam Leong said during a regular press conference yesterday.
According to Chong, the victim, holding an Exit-Entry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macau, received a call early last month from a person who claimed to be a “police officer”, accusing him of “sending a large number of fraudulent messages to the mainland”.
The victim then followed the instructions to download the Skype software, had a video chat with the “police officer” and 15 days after the call was asked to deposit all of his savings into a designated Hong Kong bank account for “the funds to be checked”, amounting to a total of HK$550,000.
Chong noted that the victim did not report the case to the Judiciary Police until Wednesday, when the “police officer” once again asked him to transfer more money to the designated bank account.
2 young men cheated out of 60,000 patacas in online chatting scams
Meanwhile, earlier this week, two non-local young men fell prey to online chatting scams in which they were defrauded of 49,700 patacas and 10,500 patacas respectively as purported security deposits for “sexual services”.
According to the press conference, both victims met people who claimed to be women on social media platforms. While chatting, the “women” indicated to the victims that they were ready to provide sexual services, but then they used different reasons to tell the victims to top up certain accounts and buy game time cards, “or else”.
