60 fell for fake travel packages, says EGL

Eunice Lam

At least 60 people had been conned out of HK$800,000 after falling for one of the 108 fake Facebook fan pages of travel agency EGL Tours that used cheap hotels and plane ticket packages as bait.

EGL said it had been urging Facebook owner Meta - after receiving over 20,000 inquiries since July - to issue a verified badge, known as a "blue tick" but was rejected until the agency's lawyer issued a letter on Friday.

The agency's executive director Steven Huen Kwok-chuen said it has seen at least six more new fake pages despite getting the "blue tick" badge.

Among over 60 victims, the highest loss involved HK$36,000. The victim bought a business-class ticket to London from a fake Facebook page. Huen said: "Scammers will often use lines like 'Only a few seats left' and 'Your chance is slipping away if you don't pay now' to get victims to pay as soon as possible.

"The packages include 'a night's stay at Peninsula Hotel with three meals and an 18-minute helicopter ride for HK$700, and Four Seasons Hotel buffet at HK$300 to HK$400 per head. These prices are all unreasonably cheap."

Huen said EGL has seen at least a 20 percent drop in inquiries on tour packages.

EGL also urged Meta to issue clear guidelines on how to apply for the "blue tick."

"It [was] ridiculous for us to issue a lawyer's letter to a social media company for a fan page. But what's more ridiculous is that a small local enterprise is worried about its consumers being scammed because an international tech giant allows these fake fan pages to operate," the agency said.

Meanwhile, a security adviser for the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team, Alex Chan Chung-man, called on people to be careful when scanning QR codes as they can also be planted with malware.

Chan's remarks came after police said they received more than 70 reports related to a fake Octopus Card mobile app. Scammers were able to con victims out of over HK$210,000, they added.

Police said scammers, upon receiving a phone number, verification code and Octopus Card number, would then log in to the victims' electronic wallets and steal their money.