Expats lose $17m in cruel computer tech support con

Kelly Kong

Twelve expatriates have fallen victim to the latest "tech support scam" in the past two months, with fraudsters able to con HK$17 million out of them, the police said.

In the most serious case, a 70-year-old retired woman, lost HK$10 million in a technical support scam last month after a warning message popped up on her computer with a loud noise.

The woman, May, then called the phone number that appeared on the warning message for technical support.

"The alert seemed urgent and official, and was accompanied by loud noise and flashing colors. It was a relief to be offered a solution to a computer security threat, so I called the number," she said.

A man who identified himself as "Steven" picked up and said: "Nine hackers in five countries have hacked your computers."

May was asked to download a remote program and to enter her e-banking account details. She was also asked to call a man, purportedly a Hong Kong police officer, on another number.

The man who answered called himself 'Edward' and told May that illegal activity had been detected in connection with her bank account.

"Edward asked me to transfer money to a safe bank account, while another man, Gary, told me to take a selfie and take photos of my identity and credit cards," she said.

She complied and transferred the HK$10 million in three lots.

May realized she had fallen victim to a scam when her bank informed the police about the transfers.

Superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching of the cyber security and technology crime bureau said scammers would use online advertisements to make victims believe their computers had been hacked and get them to transfer money to designated bank accounts.

"Nowadays, the operational systems that we are using in most of our computers are Western-based. The language we use is mostly English, so that's why the scammers behind the scam alerts are mostly using English," he said.

Chan's colleague, senior inspector Chan Chi-wing, said: "The pop-up scammer's messages are usually shown in full-screen, with flashing warning alerts accompanied by loud noise, with a phone number on it."

Besides not calling the number on the alerts, they are advised to press and hold the Esc key or pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del to open the task manager to close the message and restart the computer.

They are also urged to install antivirus software.