Nearly 1,000 students caught in scams totaling over HK$100 million in first half

Hong Kong police received 24,644 scam cases from January to July this year with total losses reaching HK$4.34 billion. While the overall increase in scams has slowed, authorities note that 957 post-secondary students were deceived in the first half of the year, including 644 local and 313 mainland Chinese students, with total losses exceeding HK$100 million.

Online shopping fraud and phone scams proved most prevalent among students, while rental fraud emerged as a new trend beginning early this year. To protect students and enhance fraud awareness, police and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority have launched a series of measures and awareness campaigns. The HKMA previously proposed amendments to the Banking Ordinance allowing banks to share corporate and personal account information through secure platforms, with new measures set to launch on November 3.

Commercial Crime Bureau Senior Superintendent Terry Law noted that while local students were involved in more cases, mainland students suffered the most severe financial losses at HK$60.31 million, accounting for 55.5 percent of total student losses. Online shopping fraud was the most common with 422 cases, mainly involving concert tickets and second-hand platform transactions. Phone scams including "impersonation of officials" and customer service fraud ranked second with 174 cases but caused nearly HK$69.9 million in losses.

The average loss per phone scam case for mainland students was 4.5 times higher than for local students. Mainland students also showed significant increases in online shopping, job-seeking and rental fraud, with rental scams emerging this year and 94.4 percent of victims being mainland students. Local students were most vulnerable to investment scams, comprising 85.7 percent of such cases.

Law cited the largest student-related case occurring in April when a 25-year-old mainland master's student lost HK$10.97 million to impersonators posing as mainland police. Several mainland students studying in Hong Kong have been arrested for participating in scam activities, including a recent case where a 19-year-old mainland university student acted as a runner for an "impersonation official" scam syndicate.

A May survey conducted by Hong Kong Polytechnic University among 3,189 students from four universities found 82 percent of respondents had encountered scams, with 6 percent suffering financial losses averaging HK$40,000. Over 20 percent of affected students did not seek help due to small amounts, inconvenience or embarrassment.

To protect bank customers including students, the HKMA introduced measures in December 2023 and April 2024 including establishing dynamic fraud transaction monitoring systems and requiring banks to fully utilize police's "Scameter" data for early intervention. These efforts successfully reduced the average loss per case from HK$1.15 million in the first seven months of 2023 to HK$760,000 during the same period this year.

HKMA Executive Director (Enforcement and AML) Raymond Chan stated that banks with branches in major universities have established special interception rules for student accounts within their fraud monitoring systems to assess scam risks. The HKMA will provide fraud risk indicators to all retail banks by September to enhance their fraud transaction monitoring systems.

Police have designated this month as "Anti-Scam Month" with a series of awareness activities, including deploying the "Quby" anti-scam themed vehicle to 17 post-secondary institutions and organizing 32 anti-scam educational seminars and activities during the back-to-school season, reaching over 4,000 students.