Police issue warning on new types of scams

Police have urged residents to stay alert to new tactics used by scammers posing as customer service agents, including a technique that effectively allows scammers to use victim's credit cards remotely. The force said around 5,000 scam cases between January and August involved fraudsters posing as customer service staff, accounting for 17 percent of all reported fraud during the period. In August alone, 1,680 impersonation cases were recorded – a rise from the monthly average of 480 seen over the first seven months of the year – resulting in more than HK$220 million in losses. Chief Inspector Wong Cheung-hing explained that fraudsters are exploiting two new technical methods. In the first method, he said, scammers instruct victims to download malware, enable Near Field Communication, and hold their credit card close to their phone, allowing scammers to make payments remotely. The second tactic involves instructing victims to register a designated bank account as a new payee and enter a verification code into the transfer field of their e-banking platform. Believing they are completing a verification step, they are in fact authorising a money transfer. Wong noted that banks first flagged these tactics in August, adding that precise victim numbers are still being calculated. “We received the intelligence from...