Hong Kong Stock Market Scam
These are classic pump and dump scams: fraudsters using social media sites (particularly Wechat) to try to approach you to buy Hong Kong stocks.
Here's a summary posted by the Singaporean Police Force website:
Victims were typically approached by scammers claiming to be from China or Hong Kong on social media platforms such as WeChat or LinkedIn. These scammers would then patiently work their way to gain the victims’ trust by texting them frequently on the pretext of friendship or networking purposes. Once trust had been established, the scammers would share that they possessed insider information on certain companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. They would then encourage victims to buy these shares on the promise of quick and guaranteed profits.
Soon after the victims had bought their shares, the share prices of these companies would plunge sharply and the victims incur huge financial losses. In one case, the share price fell by more than 85% just hours after a victim bought the shares and the victim suffered trading losses of more than S$200,000.
Comments by someone one the above post:
I just had this experience this last weekend, that's how I found this thread actually.
I have Wechat installed in my phone because I have a couple Chinese friends, so I have like 4 contacts only. And suddenly a girl out of the blue adds me and I get a notification.
Saying that she is from China and that she found me through the suggestions.
At first I was like, oh I guess she is bored because of Covid.
After like 3 small talk questions she tells me she works as a manager on some stocks trading company or something and asks me if I trade stocks, which I do, and it's kind of scary to think that they might have already known that, somehow.
Again, I don't really use Wechat so I don't know if it was just coincidence.
Then "she" quickly told me about some Honk Kong stocks that she made a profit in, and even asked me, which bank do you use? Haha
And I replied, "I'm sorry but I don't feel comfortable sharing that with someone I just met" and she got furious 😂
If you can't trust me, we can't be friends! Lol
That's when I knew it was a scam, and as I've been watching lots of YouTube videos about scammers it sounded fun to play along and see how they operate.
So I kept going, telling her about my fake hobbies and fake family 😂
And then as I was getting bored I finally found an article talking about the way they operate, just like what's described on this post, at that point I felt I got the information I needed and I said: "hey, I found an article that you might think it's interesting!"
Then she complained and said that I was a bad person for not trusting her just because of a website.
And I even said, you followed the same conversation as that article, either you're a scammer or you suck at starting a conversation with a stranger.
I blocked the contact and reported her for financial fraud on Wechat, you can even add the log so I did.
https://www.itradecimb.com.my/index.php?ch=gen_media&pg=gen_media_notice&ac=680&tpt=itrade2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81xGzIOiGVU
https://blog.seedly.sg/scam-pump-and-dump-hong-kong-listed-companies/
Connecting With You On Social Media
First of all, for strangers reaching out to you on social media, there is definitely an agenda install for them. Be it sales, scam or even asking you out on a date. Should someone connect with you and indicate that it is out of goodwill and they wish to give you some benefits with no string attached, it sounds too good to be true.
For this current scam, the most active platforms used are:
The group running this scam is usually from China or Hong Kong.
Gaining Your Trust
Here are some tactics that the scammers use to gain your trust:
When the stock price eventually goes up as the insider information promised, it may leave the victim wanting more. Do take note that such prices may be manipulated on the scammer’s end.
Stocks To Take Note Of
There is also some information on the companies these scammers use to con Singaporeans of their money. They tend to pick penny stocks on the Hong Kong Exchange to lower the barrel of entry for their victims.
Here’s a list of companies shares which the scammers use to scam their victims:
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