An 18-year-old student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong reportedly lost over half a million dollars when she was targeted in a telephone scam.
The mainland Chinese teenager, surnamed Zhang, said she received a phone call from a strange man who claimed he was a mainland law enforcement officer, HK01 reports.
The man told Zhang that he was representing her in a criminal case, and asked her to provide her personal and banking information to him. Why she believed this is unclear.
In addition, the mysterious caller reportedly asked Zhang to transfer him a cool half million RMB (HKD580,000) as a deposit, according to Apple Daily.
Yesterday, however, Zhang found that the password to her bank account had been changed. Realising she’d been swindled, the 18-year-old called the police. Officers from Sha Tin District are investigating the case as a matter of obtaining property by deception.
Police urged the public to protect themselves from telephone fraud, and said genuine law enforcement officers would never call people to surrender sensitive information like banking details and personal information.
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