Monday, November 9, 2009

Scammers Are Getting Smarter (HK Saga) - 香港詐騙集團

There was a call that i received 3 months ago, that claimed themselves as the Hong Kong Tourism Bureau. The purpose of their call was to invite me to a grand opening ceremony of one of their programs - in Hong Kong of course. I said that i am not in Hong Kong. They said that i can watch it on satellite. I said that i don't have satellite. They said that i can go to a friend's house to watch it. I have friends. . .

Anyway, 1 month ago, they called again. And said that they are able to send some discount vouchers for tourism activities in Hong Kong. I said, okay send them over.

1 day ago, i received a letter, from the "Hong Kong Tourism Bureau". It looked like this from cover to cover:

Good-feel texture booklet, with nice colour.

Uses the HKTB website, as well as adopting their logo.

The booklet is very detailed, it even had this:

Free advertising for Tissot! This made me laugh.

There is a prize pool, on a particular page, and corresponding winning numbers. How to play, is scratch the silver off the silver scratch, and see if your codes match up with any of the winning numbers.
...
And guess what??

Check out the busy-looking "lawyer" photos, and how you sort of expect to win, with so many numbers to call.

Conclusions:

A. I really wonder what a chat would be like with one of those lawyers, when i call their hotline =].
B. Hong Kong scammers are putting in a lot more effort by sending colour brochures and even investing a 3 month time period in their clients!
C. These guys are continuing to operate and evolve in practices, because of some people in the world who are falling for their trick. Thence, here it is, EXPOSED.

1 comment:

Jason P said...

Those ones are rather annoying - they kept calling on the home phone and one mobile too. My dad liked to 'argue' with them but then my smallest sister just got tied up and was too polite to hang up. :(
I took the call once and spoke only English - the girl on the otherside was really annoyed. She kept asking for me to speak Mandarin. haha
Good work for getting that far; they haven't called us since.