The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has added 13 companies to its alert list of scam firms known as 'boiler rooms', bringing the total number to 98.
'Boiler rooms have been one of the most common forms of securities market fraud,'' the SFC said in a warning statement on its Web site yesterday.
'According to information gathered by the SFC, boiler room activities have become active again and there are signs that more Hong Kong investors have become the targets.'
The SFC said it had received 38 complaints related to boiler rooms this year, with 23 of them made between April and June. There were 64 complaints last year.
Boiler rooms are a type of fraud in which investors receive phone calls or e-mails from representatives of scam firms, who use lures such as high guaranteed returns to attract investors to buy shares.
The SFC said that after investors gave money to the boiler rooms, the firm's representatives would disappear with their money while investors found the share certificates they received were bogus.
