Hong Kong residents lose HK$726 million in 2021 to phone scammers pretending to be mainland Chinese officials
- Newly arrived mainland Chinese students tricked by scammers accusing them of breaking the law across the border
- Locals targeted by tricksters claiming ‘discrepancies’ in personal information for Covid-19 vaccine
Fraudsters posing as mainland Chinese officials duped Hong Kong residents out of HK$726 million (US$93 million) in phone scams in the first 11 months of 2021, the highest losses in a single year for such cases since 2015.
The amount was also 35 per cent more than the HK$539 million victims reported losing to phone scammers over the same period last year.
Mainland students who arrived in the city for the new academic term were one group targeted by fraudsters, who scared them with claims they had broken the law across the border before extracting their personal information.
Between September and November, 101 postsecondary mainland students were scammed out of nearly HK$36 million. In the biggest case, a student reported losing HK$2.4 million.
Meanwhile, in a new wave of coronavirus pandemic-related scams, fraudsters impersonating health officials tricked local victims into revealing their personal information by saying they could not receive their third vaccine jab because of discrepancies in their particulars recorded when they had their first two doses.