A middle-aged woman from the mainland has lost HK$880,000 (905,800 patacas) in an online investment scam, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Kim Fong said in a regular press conference yesterday.
According to Cheong, the woman became virtual friends with a man on the internet in February while she was watching a live-streaming sales event, who claimed to be able to guide her to “set up an online shop as an investment”. He then lured her into investing. Under his guidance, the woman set up the online shop on a shopping platform and transferred money to the platform multiple times, totalling over HK$100,000 as “operating funds.”
In late March, the platform account showed a “profit of US$400,000” (approximately 3.2 million patacas), prompting the victim to try to withdraw the funds. The customer service claimed that an “unfreezing fee” was required for the withdrawal, asking the victim to transfer a total of US$100,000 (801,000 patacas) in two separate transactions. Even after adding the funds, she was still unable to withdraw the cash, and the purported customer service continued to demand additional payments under the pretext of “system verification” and “handling fees.”
As the “customer service” kept demanding additional payments and she was unable to withdraw her money, the woman finally suspected that she had been scammed and reported the case to the police on Tuesday.
