By Vir B. Lumicao
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| Saret and Lau at the start of the webinar done especially for Filipino DHs |
More Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong are becoming
victims of deception, but they themselves could help prevent their elderly
employers from being conned.
This was disclosed in a webinar on deception conducted on
Sunday, Mar 21, by the Hong Kong Police in cooperation with the Consulate. It
was the first ever such project held by the police to educate the city’s legion
of foreign domestic helpers.
“We, police, saw the rising trend in deception cases
recently and many victims were Filipinos working in Hong
Kong,” Chief Superintendent Lam Hung-chuen, commander of the
Central Police District, said at the opening of the webinar.
Consul Paulo Saret, head of the Consulate’s assistance to
nationals section, thanked Lam for initiating the project, which he said was
timely because many Filipino workers have become victims of scams lately.
Lam said two key officers in the police anti-deception
campaign had been invited to speak and educate the workers on various types of
deception and how to prevent them.
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| Lee says deception is like a virus that is everywhere and could infect anyone |
Senior Inspector Gerald Lee, assistant regional crime
prevention officer of Hong Kong
Island, said deception had
increased threefold from 5,652 or 7% of total crimes in 2010, to 15,553 or 25%
in 2020, a high ratio of one in every four crime cases.
“Actually, deception is an excellent business,” Lee said. Deception
is a mainstream crime in Hong Kong that poses
a real threat to everyone, he said.
“We find that a lot of domestic workers fall victims to deception
cases, so you should know more about deception,” the officer said.
Lee said the advent of technology has made living convenient
for people, but has also turned the environment conducive for fraudsters who use
the internet, social media, communications software, and email to reach victims
anywhere in the world.
Lee said deception is like the Covid-19 virus that replicates
and exists everywhere and infects anyone, so people have to get vaccinated to
be immune to it.
“Deception and fraudsters are everywhere through the
internet and they pose a real threat to us. If we are not cautious enough, we
get deceived and lose our money,” Lee said.
In some minor cases like online shopping, the loss is just a
few hundred dollars, but in a few serious telephone deception cases, the
victims lose large amounts of money, including all their savings or a few
million dollars.
He said by knowing more about deception, the workers get
more protection from it.
Lee first discussed “romance scam,” a common form of
deception done through social media. He said many people use social media to
find their partner and get into a relationship, but some end up getting
deceived and losing a lot of money.
Fraudsters use social media and dating apps to get
acquainted with victims to whom they introduce themselves as professionals like
doctors, engineers, soldiers, and retirees. They will show care and concern and
use sweet words to gain the victims’ trust.
Once successful, they ask for financial aid claiming they’re
in trouble, or send “high-value” special gifts for which the victim must pay a
huge customs fee, Lee said.
Lee disclosed a new deception that combines romance scam and
investment scam. In this trickery, after the scammer establishes a
relationship, he lures the victim into high-yield investment plans and download
an alleged investment mobile app.
The scammer then tells the victim to remit money through the
mobile app as instructed. Inspired by
the initial high return, the victim invests more until she loses all her money.
Other scam methods involve shopping online, where the victim
is enticed by a fraudster posing as a seller to buy goods through the
e-shopping platform. The victim is instructed to pay upfront, but doesn’t
receive the goods. The seller then becomes out of reach.
In another version, the fraudster poses as a buyer of goods,
sends proof of payment so that the seller ships the merchandise to him. But the
remittance receipt turns out to have been photoshopped and the deposited check
forged, resulting in a loss to the seller.
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| Luk says many telephone scams target the elderly so helpers must know how to help them |
Gary Luk, police senior inspector from the Anti-Deception
Coordination Council, said in February this year, there were 39 telephone
deception cases that led to a loss of $18.2 million, an increase of 148% from
the same month last year.
Luk said there are two types of telephone deception, the
“guess who” and “pretending officials”, in which scammers from the mainland
target elderly Hong Kong people.
In the first type, the scammers disguise as mainland
officials investigating the victim for criminal offenses. They then ask the
victim to give money or his e-banking credentials to prove his innocence. In
this scam, the victim can lose his lifetime savings, Luk said.
He said Filipinos are not within the reach of this type of
scammers, who only speak Mandarin and Cantonese. But the workers play a very
important role as key influence agents to halt the scam that target the
elderly, most of whom don’t live with their children but with the helpers, who
are the main care providers,” the officer said.
Luk sad in several cases, the helpers saw their elderly
employer talking lengthily and nervously on the phone. The scams were halted
when the employers’ children were alerted.
In the “guess who” type, the fraudster makes a call
pretending to be a relative of the victim and asks for money, saying that
another relative is in trouble. He asks the victim for help and tells him to
transfer money in a designated bank account, then disappears.
