Hong Kong police have received 1,503 reports of unauthorized credit card purchases involving Apple’s new iPhone 18, totaling more than HK$30 million, Commissioner of Police Joe Chow Yat-ming said.
The surge in reports followed the smartphone's pre-sale launch in early September, which was quickly exploited by scammers in a spate of suspected credit card frauds across the city.
Speaking after a Kowloon City District Council meeting on Tuesday, Chow confirmed that all affected transactions have been canceled, ensuring that cardholders, financial institutions, and Apple suffered no direct monetary losses.
Based on initial investigations, police attributed the unauthorized orders to a loophole in Apple’s online checkout system, under which identity and payment verification requirements were reportedly waived for web purchases.
Chow explained that fraudsters used virtual private network (VPN) services to conceal their true geographical locations while submitting fabricated or incomplete delivery addresses.
When Apple subsequently sent confirmation emails requesting address clarification, the syndicates designated public pick-up locations and recruited runners to collect the devices.
Chow reaffirmed the force's commitment to pursuing the syndicate behind the fraud and has asked Apple to review its transaction process ahead of another phone pre-sale next month.
Additionally, he reported that Hong Kong recorded 59,213 crimes in the first eight months of the year, marking a 0.2 year-on-year increase.
Notably, fraud cases climbed 4.5 percent to 29,670, accounting for 50 percent of all crimes for the first time, with losses rising 3.8 percent to HK$5.21 billion.
Among the cases, phone scams overtook online shopping fraud as the most pressing category at 27 percent, followed by online shopping scams at 23 percent.
More than 2,000 fraud complaints were logged last month alone, with approximately 80 percent involving scammers posing as customer service personnel.
He said investigations found three-quarters of the calls came from local numbers, yet renting, lending or selling phone numbers is not a criminal offense.
Even when police arrest the registered owner of a SIM card, the person can claim they did not know their number was being used for fraud, he added.
Given that existing regulatory frameworks permit an individual to register up to 10 prepaid SIM cards with each telecommunications carrier, Chow urged relevant authorities to introduce legislative amendments as quickly as possible to close the statutory loophole.
