Elderly scam victims lose HK$850,000 on average, but ones who know finance lose more

Investment scams targeting Hong Kong’s elderly rose by 17 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 against a year ago, despite an overall decline in the number of cases, with police warning that better-educated retirees with more investment experience were more vulnerable to fraudsters.

Superintendent Theodora Lee Wai-see of the force’s commercial crime bureau said elderly victims’ losses contributed to the 18.6 per cent rise in total losses incurred from scams between January and March compared with the same period in 2025, even as the number of cases fell.

“We can see that in investment scams, the average loss for elderly victims is close to HK$1.01 million, showing that once the elderly fall into investment scams, they suffer serious losses,” Lee said.

In the first quarter, Hong Kong recorded 9,427 scam cases in which HK$1.85 billion was lost. The figures marked a 0.6 per cent drop in the number of cases and an 18.6 per cent increase in losses compared with the same period last year.

Notably, 1,264 of the latest victims were over the age of 60 – a third more than in the same period last year. Losses suffered by these elderly victims rose by 79 per cent year on year to reach HK$530 million.

Investment scams involving the elderly increased by 17.1 per cent to 329 cases, with losses jumping by 68.9 per cent to HK$330 million.

Police conducted a phone survey this year of 1,056 elderly investment scam victims from 2025.

It found that those who had worked in commerce, real estate, insurance or accounting suffered an average loss of more than HK$1.2 million, 45 per cent higher than the overall average loss of HK$850,000 among all respondents.

Elderly victims who said they had investment experience suffered an average loss of HK$1.05 million, whereas those who said they had not invested before lost an average of HK$540,000.

“Those who have invested tend to be more confident in their own judgment. Scammers would also mix in jargon and realistic investment plans, which made them seem more convincing,” Lee said.

“By contrast, the elderly without investment experience tended to be more conservative, hence they didn’t lose as much.”

The survey also revealed how initial cash withdrawals were used to lure victims into more complex schemes, with 17 per cent of respondents able to withdraw money from sham investment platforms or plans.

However, victims who had been able to withdraw money during the scams also lost an average of 60 per cent more than those who had not.

Lee said the highest amount withdrawn from a sham investment platform among the respondents was HK$1 million, but the victim ultimately lost HK$5.4 million.

“Scammers would give out ‘sweeteners’ to create an illusion of profit-making, but in reality they hoped victims would inject more capital afterwards,” she explained.

The superintendent added that it took an average of 28 days after receiving a scam alert from the Anti-Deception Coordination Centre before victims reported their cases to police.

The delay occurred as victims, hoping to verify platforms’ legitimacy, ignored initial warnings, giving scammers more time to deploy different tactics and extract additional fees, Lee said.

A retired programmer, who did not give her name, said she lost more than HK$1 million between last September and January in about 10 transactions to various personal accounts, after joining a WhatsApp investment channel from a Facebook advertisement.

The woman had been able to withdraw HK$10,000 from her sham investments initially, but began to suffer losses afterwards. A message from police last year aroused her suspicions, but it still took her some time to accept she had been cheated.

“I tried to look up information about the investment expert I was supposedly talking to about whether he had been impersonated, and there were articles saying so, but they were from 2023,” she said.

“I told myself it was already 2025, so maybe the issues had already been solved.”

Raymond Chan King-wang, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s executive director of enforcement and anti-money-laundering, said the banking sector worked with police and other regulators by exchanging information to detect potentially fraudulent accounts.

He added that retail banks would lower the transfer limit for newly opened bank accounts to less than HK$100,000.

“We’ve seen scam cases where criminals would open bank accounts online, then immediately deposit funds and then withdraw them,” Chan explained, adding that this had prompted the sector to lower the limit.

The authority was also working with police and 11 retail banks to establish a machine-learning model to identify stooge accounts, he added. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST