Hong Kong police officers have warned English-speaking Hongkongers to be wary of calls from unrecognised numbers, after some phone-scamming syndicates appear to be changing their tactics.
According to the SCMP, a few cases have come to light over the last week of people receiving pre-recorded messages in English from unrecognised numbers in Singapore or the Philippines.
The message reportedly says “Hello, we are calling from S.F. Express. You have a parcel mailed to you but still with us. Please talk to our customer service officer.”
Similar phone scams in Cantonese and Mandarin normally transfer the call to a person posing as a mainland official of some kind, who would then attempt to intimidate the victim into forking out large amounts of money into several different bank accounts.
While the recent rash of English-language scam calls appear to have been made from Singapore or the Philippines, a police source with knowledge of phone scam investigations told the SCMP that the calls are ordinarily made via the internet, so the scammers’ locations are often ambiguous.
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