Most victims in the recent spate of phone scams which occurred in Hong Kong were elderly people, a police source said. But a criminologist added that young netizens were also prone to such scams - especially those unfamiliar with life on the mainland.

Con artists have hit the headlines in the city as 1,038 deceptions extracted a haul of HK$153 million over the past seven months. Racketeers have duped their victims by pretending to be mainland officers.

The Hong Kong Police Force said in July alone it handled 830 such cases, with about HK$126 million being swindled.

The police said the modus operandi of tricksters generally took three forms: Eliciting sensitive information from the victim; claiming there was a fictional kidnapping on the mainland; and posing as mainland police officers.

In about 10 percent of those cases involving conmen pretending to be mainland police officers, the victims were asked to provide bank account details on fake websites.

A police source told China Daily that while the victims were all ages, most were elderly people.

Meanwhile, Assistant Professor of Criminology from the City University of Hong Kong Oliver Chan Heng-choon said young people, who like to shop online, were easy targets for con artists as they might accidentally leak their personal information online.

A lot of the scams involve tricksters claiming that mail packages sent to victims from the mainland had some prohibited items, he said.

Chan also noted that a lack of knowledge about mainland systems also contributed to the scams. For instance, he explained, mainland law enforcers would never ask people to pay cash deposits to prove their innocence. Some racketeers, pretending to be couriers, transfer phone calls to mainland authorities. But Chan said this was not normal practice on the mainland.

He said the telephone scams have developed into a combination of phone and Internet deceptions.

Using only the phone to dupe people out of their personal information is getting harder and harder. Thus, con artists have evolved and use the latest technology, Chan said.

Chan believed the scammers would update their modus operandi soon as the police have improved public awareness. He said con artists usually cast a wide net and revise their plans after trial and error.

The telephone deceptions have caused great anxiety and the government has developed a service to warn the public to be vigilant. Chan suggested the government continuously update this to explain new con tricks.

A cross-border crackdown on phone scams was announced on Monday - the same day as what is believed to be the largest amount a single scam has yielded in the city surfaced. Famous Chinese folk song singer Li Yuanrong, 73, was duped out of HK$20 million.

stushadow@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 08/12/2015 page10)