Relentless scams in online investments

A 43-year-old local woman has become the latest to have fallen victim to an online investment scam. In a report filed with the Judiciary Police, the woman claimed to have lost the equivalent of MOP1,620,400 in investments made through a mobile application called “Lexin.fun.”

She told the PJ that she was introduced to the app via a man she met on social media. He convinced her that she could make a lot of profit through the app, which offered a high return on investment.

From January this year she started to invest in an account she created on the app. Over the course of three months she deposited on several occasions a total of RMB1,213,000 plus HKD80,000.

March 10 she opened the account to check on the progress of her investment, and she discovered that her account balance was only US48 cents.

She also realized that she had lost all contact with the person who had convinced her to invest in the app originally.

In a different case, the PJ reported that a 42-year-old non-resident man had also fallen victim to a similar scam, this time by using an app that offered cash loans up to RMB69,000.

The man put all his data in an online form and submitted an application for a RMB53,000 loan but got no response.

A few days later he contacted the app’s customer service and was told that there was some inconsistency in his data and that his loan application had been frozen.

He was then asked to deposit 50% of the loan requested (RMB26,500) in an account through the app. After making the deposit, he was never contacted again. He lost the RMB26,500.