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HKD 250M Phone Scam - 90 Year Old Woman

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  1. #1

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    HKD 250M Phone Scam - 90 Year Old Woman

    This one breaks some records...

    Shame on the banks for all the AML garbage and "duty of care" (crypto suspensions) they throw at customers... and then allow such large scams to continue. Yes, we don't know the details, but you'd think that there would be some triggers / warnings going off on backends when such transfers happen.

    A 90-year-old woman living in a mansion on The Peak was conned out of about HK$250 million (US$32 million) by criminals impersonating mainland officials, making her the biggest known victim of a phone scam in Hong Kong.

    Police arrested a 19-year-old university student late last month in connection with the crime and officers froze bank accounts containing HK$9 million, but the phone scammers have made off with the rest.

    Officers from the Central district crime squad began investigating after receiving a report from the victim last month.
    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...nned-out-hk250
    markranson likes this.

  2. #2

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    $250mil may be just a tip of her wealth. but you're right, banks should have raised some red flags for this kind of activities

  3. #3

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    Here's an opinion based around HK's interpretation of duty of care.

    The Courts’ restriction of the scope of application of the Quincecare duty will be welcomed by banks. The above cases provide reassurance to banks that the Quincecare duty is limited to circumstances of attempted misappropriation of the customer’s funds by an agent of the customer, rather than by a third party perpetrating a fraud on the customer which induces the payment (i.e. the situation common in email fraud cases). Where a bank is satisfied that payment instructions it received are genuine, it is not required to take steps to investigate or detect the underlying purpose of the transfer.


    However, the decision in PT Tugu Pratama Indonesia v Citibank NA [2018] 5 HKLRD 277, in which the Hong Kong Court held that the Quincecare duty should only be triggered in clear cases and opined that it is not the function of the bank to act as a ‘fraud detector’, has gone on appeal. It is yet to be seen whether the Hong Kong Court of Appeal will take a different approach in relation to the application of the Quincecare duty.
    https://www.deacons.com/news-and-ins...etectives.html

    some more reading:

    https://www.dlapiper.com/zh-hans/hon...-recent-cases/

  4. #4

    The old lady has $250 million at her disposal ? Sure ? right ? the family would let a 90 year old have the money sitting around easy access?

    The daughter couldn't be bothered to go to the bank to check and stop ? With $250 million she would have private wealth management services and a fund manager investing her money (that's how they make the commission). The money would be tied up in stocks, bonds etc. property etc.

    I don't buy it.

    It's not like the little granny who gets a phone call and goes with her helper to queue up at the bank to withdraw her savings.

    JAherbert, mysti and Tom007 like this.

  5. #5

    Having said that, I once got a phone call scam. The guy said, " Do you remember me? I am your uncle ? Can you guess who I am ?" The trick of course was for me to say a host of family names and then he would jump on that. So I played along. I said, " Are you Uncle Wong from Guangzhou ? We have not seen you for 15 years. " ..."yes, yes, " he said. " I am so happy to hear from you. Can we meet up ? " " Yes, yes, " he says.
    Then I tell him a place and said " The whole family of 6 brothers is really angry with you. You owe us $1 million dollars. You better cough up now !" He put the phone down. Ha ha


  6. #6

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    I don't buy it.
    The weird part of this scam is the involvement of a local "kid" who went to her place and gave her a phone which the "investigators" would use to communicate with her.

    This does not compute...
    BCD likes this.

  7. #7

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    Natural selection via the banking system...


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    Google Translate from a local newspaper:

    Suprisingly, the person who delivered the phone to the victim is "out on bail".

    The police received a report from a 90-year-old woman on March 2 this year, saying that they received a call from a self-proclaimed mainland official in August last year. A few days after the incident, a person who claimed to be a mainland public security officer arrived at the victim’s address. A telephone (with SIM card) was also provided for the victim to contact. On August 12 of the same year, the victim deposited 7.9 million yuan into the fraudster’s account as instructed. From the next day (13th) to January 4 this year, the victim also followed the swindler's instructions to deposit about 247 million yuan into the swindler's two bank accounts in 10 installments. In the end, the victim was defrauded of about 250 million yuan within 5 months.

    In the incident, the victim's domestic helper found that the situation was suspicious and called the victim's daughter to inform her of the situation. However, in the end it failed to prevent the scam from continuing. The victim's daughter finally revealed the incident, and the victim then reported the incident to the police.
    https://std.stheadline.com/realtime/...A0%B1%E5%88%B0

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by shri:
    The weird part of this scam is the involvement of a local "kid" who went to her place and gave her a phone which the "investigators" would use to communicate with her.

    This does not compute...
    wow...the local "kid" can just waltz up into the grand old mansion on the peak ????

  10. #10

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    And it looks like Standard Chartered (Google Translate) was involved in this:

    It is reported that on August 12 of the same year, the old woman first deposited a sum of HK$7.9 million into the fraudster’s Standard Chartered Bank account. During the five-month period from the next day to January 4 this year, the old woman followed the instructions again to deposit 247 million Hong Kong dollars into the two bank accounts of the fraudsters in 10 installments.

    In one of them, the old woman even asked the private driver to take her and the fraudster to a bank branch in Central No. 1 to make a transfer.

    The old woman lived with two foreign domestic helpers. The foreign domestic helper felt suspicious and called the elderly woman to tell her situation. The old woman learned of the incident and thought something was wrong.

    A relative went to the bank to observe what the scammer and the old woman were doing in the bank, but she did not ask any further questions.

    The bank staff also asked the old woman about the purpose of the remittance. The old woman said it was for the purpose of purchasing a property on the top of the mountain.

    At the beginning of last month, under the persuasion of her daughter, the old woman was finally accompanied by a lawyer to report to the police.
    https://news.mingpao.com/ins/%e6%b8%...a4%a7%e7%94%9f

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