Ten local residents have lost a total of 513,049 patacas in a scam involving fraudsters impersonating Douyin* customer service representatives, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Un Hong said during a regular press conference yesterday.
Cheong added that the victims, four men and six women, separately reported the cases to the Judiciary Police between October 21 and 26, after receiving calls from people claiming to represent the Chinese short-video platform “Douyin.”
According to Cheong, one of the female victims received a call last Thursday from a scammer who claimed she had activated a livestreaming service and would be charged a service fee. When she denied activating the service, the caller offered to help cancel it and instructed her to enable screen sharing on her phone and download several unfamiliar apps.
Believing the caller, the victim followed the instructions, logged into her online banking account, provided verification codes, and enabled password-free payments. Her phone screen subsequently went black and became unresponsive.
When she later accessed her online banking account again, she discovered that 152,000 patacas had been transferred out of her account. She then reported the suspected fraud to the police, Cheong said.
Cheong noted that the other nine victims received similar calls between October 20 and 26. The scammers used the same method to obtain their online banking information and transfer money from their accounts. Their individual losses ranged from 2,826 to 110,000 patacas.
The Judiciary Police are investigating all 10 cases.
*Douyin is the Chinese version of TikTok, which operates internationally under a separate name. – DeepSeek
Official logo of Douyin. – Photo courtesy of ByteDance Ltd via Wikimedia Commons
