Water Supplies Department warns of fraudulent SMS with suspicious link

Citizens are urged to be aware of the fraudulent SMS messages purportedly issued by the Water Supplies Department (WSD), which provides hyperlinks to fake websites that seek to deceive recipients into making outstanding payments. 

The fraudulent messages were sent under the name of "HKSW" and did not contain the prefix "#" in the sender ID. The message also comes with a suspicious link asking the recipient to pay the outstanding amount of the bill.

WSD clarified that all SMS messages they send would include the prefix "#", which represents the sender registered in the SMS Sender Registration Scheme by the Office of the Communications Authority for easy identification by the public.

The Department added that they do not send SMS with links to external sites, and the matter has been reported to the police for further investigation.

Anyone who has provided personal information to the website concerned should contact the police, WSD said.