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Clifford Lo

Men seeking compensated dating - a disguised form of prostitution - are being taken for thousands of dollars in a new fraud scam, police say.
Victims are persuaded to pay up first, then their dates fail to appear or they are extorted via threats their demand for sexual services will be disclosed to their families, police say. 
Each could lose anything from a few hundred dollars to more than HK$10,000 in the scam, an investigator said. 
The new tactic surfaced three to four weeks ago with police in Tsim Sha Tsui, Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok and Wan Chai receiving similar reports. 
In compensated dating, the customer pays in cash or kind to go on a date and have sex with the woman.
Investigations show Hongkongers who seek such dates on internet forums are the targets of a mainland-based syndicate. 
The men were asked to meet their dates on the streets before going to love hotels for sex, but their dates did not show up. 
'The victims, waiting on the streets, then called their dates, but were persuaded to pay money first if they wanted to see their girls,' the investigator said.
They were asked to buy an added-value mainland cellphone coupon at a convenience store and to reveal the account number and password on the coupon to a middleman on the phone. Fraudsters then used the data to add value to their own phone cards and cashed in by selling the cards, police said. 
Officers believe this payment method is a new tactic in an attempt to escape detection.
Police said some fraudsters extorted their victims by threatening to tell their families of their demand for sexual services. 'They paid up because they were embarrassed and terrified,' the officer said. 
'The sex service does not exist and no one shows up for the date. It's just a fraud.' 
Police are investigating how many victims have fallen into such a trap and how much money is involved. 
Checks on phone numbers the syndicate used showed that it operated on the mainland, another police officer said, adding that they would seek help from mainland public security officers if necessary. 
Reports of deception rose 12.6 per cent to 1,560 in the first three months of this year from 1,386 in the same period of last year. 
This year, growing numbers of people are falling for phone scams. Conmen convince victims to leave cash on the street or deposit money in a bank account after pretending to be a family member in distress. 
Panic is the prime reason the victims, most of whom are elderly, fall for the scam.
 To expose the scam, police say people should phone their children and family to check if they receive suspicious calls.
1,916 
Despite deception cases rising this year,  the number of telephone deception cases dropped to this level  last year from 2,019 in 2010.




Sex hunters fall victim to new paid-dating scam