As cooler weather prompts Hong Kong residents to sort out autumn and winter clothes, scammers are exploiting the trend with Facebook pages promising up to HK$50 per kilogram for old garments, only to trap victims in elaborate online fraud schemes involving fake tasks and prepaid memberships.
Investigators from Sing Tao Probe discovered dozens of nearly identical pages advertising doorstep collection at premium rates, often exceeding HK$50 per kilo.
Posing as an interested seller, a reporter provided contact details and was quickly offered an HK$80 deposit via FPS, then lured into a WhatsApp group promising higher payouts and free home cleaning services in exchange for completing simple online tasks.
Inside the group, administrators encouraged members to follow specific channels or download apps, rewarding each action with HK$20 to HK$40.
Fake participants regularly posted about easy earnings to build trust.
Over two days, the reporter received nearly HK$600 in small transfers, but the scheme soon demanded registration on a counterfeit travel membership site called MITS, requiring deposits from HK$300 to HK$2,000 for supposed promotions, with promises of full refunds plus bonuses.
Further checks revealed the travel site copied branding from a legitimate Macau-based educational tour operator, which confirmed it had reported the impostor to local cyber police and requested its takedown.
Suspicious of escalating demands, the reporter blocked the group to avoid potential losses.
Similar fraudulent pages vanish and reappear every few days, some hijacking logos of genuine recycling organizations.
The Conservancy Association confirmed one page falsely claimed to be its Kowloon headquarters and has filed a police report.
Its project manager warned that legitimate operations cannot sustain such high payout rates given labor, storage, and transport costs, urging the public to treat any offer above HK$50 per kilo as a red flag.
Police data shows over 10,000 online job scams reported from 2023 to mid-2024, with losses reaching HK$590 million in the first half of this year alone.
Authorities advise using the Scameter app to verify suspicious accounts, numbers, or links and calling the anti-scam hotline 18222 at the first sign of doubt.
