Two people have fallen victim to scammers who impersonated courier workers and sent fake text messages to steal bank account information in Hong Kong, with one person losing more than HK$1 million (US$128,200).
Police revealed the cases on their CyberDefender social media account on Friday, warning that the force had recorded more than 60 phishing scams over the past two weeks, with more than HK$6 million in total stolen from victims.
The force said a victim recently received a phishing text message from a fake courier company, falsely claiming that the person’s package would arrive and asking them to contact the courier.
The victim, who had recently made purchases from the online shopping platform Pinduoduo, made the call without suspicion.
The fake courier who answered the call falsely claimed that the Pinduoduo package had been damaged and referred the victim to another customer service representative to claim compensation.
The victim provided bank account information for the refund but the fraudster then claimed that the transfer had failed and that there were abnormalities in the account.
