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GLORIA CHAN

The South China Morning Post has emerged over the past two days as the latest target of a scam in which someone claiming to represent a courier company in Shenzhen attempted to swindle funds out of staff members.
More than 20 members of the Post's editorial team - including reporters, editors and sub-editors - received calls beginning with a pre-recorded message saying in Cantonese that the caller was in possession of an undelivered parcel after attempting to deliver it to the call recipient three times. "Press zero to contact our staff," the female voice said at the end of the message.
One Post reporter, who after pressing zero spoke on the phone in Putonghua with a woman for almost 30 minutes yesterday, said the caller claimed to be from STO Express, a well-known courier company on the mainland.
The woman on the phone said a parcel was sent on July 20 from the Songjiang district of Shanghai to Macau under the reporter's Chinese name but was stopped by customs before it left Shanghai. Eight fake passports were found inside the parcel, the caller said.
"We received a document from Shanghai customs - they will be contacting you within two hours to investigate your legal responsibility in this," she told the reporter.
When the reporter asked for details of the customs document, the woman repeatedly declined to provide any, claiming she was unable to send the information by email and that if the reporter insisted on seeing it, she would have to go in person to a Shenzhen branch of STO Express.
"Just ring up Shanghai customs if you are in doubt," she said. "Your personal information must have been stolen from a recent transaction."
Throughout the call, the reception was poor and the woman said it was because the company's telephone line was being repaired. There were people talking in the background but their words were inaudible.
The Songjiang police confirmed with the reporter that the phone call was a scam and that they received "many, many" such inquiries every day.
Shenzhen STO Express could not be reached for comment.
Such calls frequently end with the scammer telling the victim he or she must transfer money as a show of good faith to the authorities. None of the calls to the Post have reached that stage.
Another Post reporter received a scam phone call from someone claiming to work for a courier company. The reporter was then transferred to what the caller said was a Public Security Bureau office, where she was instructed to visit a website that contained her photo from her home return permit - the document used by Hong Kong residents to visit the mainland.
The reporter, who is not a frequent visitor to the mainland, has not shown the permit to anyone other than the authorities on the two occasions she has used it to cross the border.
Meanwhile, the University of Hong Kong said in an internal email sent out by its estates office on Tuesday that staff at the university had also been contacted over the phone by the scammers. A growing "number of … calls are made to HKU staff and students trying to deceive [them and] … solicit their personal or bank account information", it said.


Scammers target South China Morning Post workers with fraudulent calls

One Post reporter, who after pressing zero spoke on the phone in Putonghua with a woman for almost 30 minutes yesterday, said the caller claimed to be from STO Express, a well-known courier company on the mainland.


News

Hong Kong

Law and Crime

Reporters and editors receive calls fraudulently claiming to be from mainland courier companies
