The Hong Kong Police Force has launched an "Anti-Scam Month" campaign from mid-August to September to address the notable increase in impersonation scams affecting residents, as well as fraudulent schemes targeting Chinese mainland students studying in Hong Kong.

The campaign’s launch was marked by a new series of anti-scam promotional videos set to be broadcast across various platforms starting on Monday. From Aug 16 until Friday, the police are also deploying vehicles and ice cream vans to traverse different districts in the city to promote anti-scam information.  

Fraudulent cases involving impostors posing as customer service agents have surged this year, with over 2,716 reported cases by the end of July, resulting in a loss exceeding HK$584 million ($75 million), according to a governmental statement released on Monday.

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From January to June this year, there were 1,605 reported scam cases involving the impersonation of customer services, leading to a total loss of HK$379 million.

In July alone, 1,111 scam cases involving the impersonation of customer services were reported, resulting in losses amounting to HK$205 million.

Lee Wai-see, superintendent of the Commercial Crime Bureau of the Hong Kong Police Force, said that in cases involving the impersonation of customer services, fraudsters would first reach out to residents through various channels. These scammers, who pose as customer service representatives for certain companies, then deceive residents into believing that they have placed orders for products or services with the company.

When residents seek to cancel these orders, the fraudsters request bank information or try to persuade residents to transfer money to facilitate the cancelation process.

Lee said that between January and May this year, the majority of fraudsters impersonated Taobao customer service staff. Scam cases related to Taobao accounted for 77 percent of all fake customer services cases during that period, totaling 605 cases.

From June to July, most fraudsters shifted their focus to impersonating WeChat customer service representatives. Scam cases involving WeChat made up 70 percent (1,372 cases) of the total fake customer services cases, resulting in losses exceeding HK$238 million.

Also prevalent were cases in which fraudsters posed as China Mobile customer service staff, with 308 cases involving over HK$65 million.

The vast majority of victims, 99.6 percent, were Hong Kong residents, with 22 percent of them aged between 18 and 29, 19 percent aged 40 to 49, and 7 percent aged 70 or older.

The most significant financial loss was suffered by a 51-year-old victim who fell prey to a fraudster posing as a WeChat customer service agent. The fraudster coerced the victim into providing a security deposit for canceling a supposed service, resulting in a loss exceeding HK$4.5 million.

Furthermore, in the first half of this year, the police registered 481 scam cases of fraudsters impersonating officials, with 96 cases involving victims who are mainland students. This marked a 20 percent increase from the 64 cases reported during the same period last year.

Losses reached over HK$88 million this year, more than double the HK$43 million in losses in the previous year.

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Recently, a 23-year-old mainland student in Hong Kong studying on a short-term course experienced a loss of HK$3.8 million. He received a call from a fraudster who posed as an Immigration Department staff member. The scammer accused the victim of involvement in money laundering activities, then requested his bank account details and password before extracting funds.

Data from 2023 revealed that September and October are particularly high-risk months for mainland students to fall victim to such fraudulent schemes.

From January to June this year, the police recorded a total of 19,897 scam cases, constituting about 44 percent of all crimes, a 6.2 percent increase compared to the same period last year. Financial losses resulting from these scams amounted to HK$4.48 billion, marking a 66.5 percent increase from the previous year.