Hong Kong continues to see higher-than-average digital fraud rates, with Gen Z users in the crosshairs and online scammers favouring forums and dating sites as their hunting ground for victims, according to new research.
Suspected fraud was present in 5.7 per cent of all digital transactions by consumers in Hong Kong in the first half of 2024, higher than the global average of 5.2 per cent, according to research conducted in July by TransUnion, a Chicago-headquartered consumer credit reporting agency.
Community sites, including forums and dating sites, were prime venues for fraud in the city, with suspected deception involved in 15 per cent of interactions, higher than the global average of 11.5 per cent, according to the research published on Wednesday. This could be driven in part “by bad actors using synthetic or stolen identities to open accounts”, TransUnion said.
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“Despite the good-faith efforts that are being undertaken by local authorities and institutions to identify and prevent fraud to date, consumers and businesses confront increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals who weaponise identity data at scale to execute fraud schemes,” said Jerry Ying, chief product officer at TransUnion Asia-Pacific.
“This highlights the pressing need for businesses to continuously enhance their capabilities to safeguard consumers from online deception across industries.”
Gen Z and millennial consumers are the most affected by fraud, with as many as 51 per cent of Gen Z respondents saying they had been targeted in the past three months. This could be due to their frequent use of digital devices, according to the report. Meanwhile, millennials were found to be the most likely to actually suffer losses from fraud.
After community sites, the retail and financial-services sectors ranked second and third in terms of digital fraud rate, at 9.5 per cent and 5.5 per cent, respectively. Notably, financial-services fraud is growing at the fastest pace – it rose 29 per cent compared with a year earlier.
In a separate survey by cybersecurity firm Norton, 16 per cent of Hong Kong respondents reported being targeted by scammers while shopping during holiday periods including Christmas and National Day in the last year. Of those targeted, 62 per cent suffered financial losses.
The average fraud victim in Hong Kong lost HK$7,379 (US$949.60), according to the survey of more than 12,000 people in several markets around the world, which was published on Wednesday.
The most frequent holiday travel scams occurred during the booking process, with losses involving compromised credit or bank information (44 per cent), phishing schemes (36 per cent), and “malvertising” attacks (31 per cent), said Norton, a brand of Nasdaq-listed Gen Digital.
Hong Kong authorities have been ramping up efforts to combat digital fraud. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Hong Kong Association of Banks in April launched version 2.0 of their anti-scam consumer protection charter, which seeks to help the public guard against credit-card scams and other forms of fraud.
Businesses that have signed the charter will refrain from sending instant text messages containing hyperlinks to collect personal information in a bid to guard against fraudsters sending phishing messages under the guise of these firms.
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