Scammers who steal followers from social media to make bogus business pages more believable hit Hong Kong travel agency

Scammers have found a new way to deceive people on social media. They've been taking over legitimate Facebook pages with lots of followers and creating fake pages that look like they belong to a Hong Kong travel agency called EGL Tours. The scammers offer what seem to be amazing travel deals to trick people into giving them money.

EGL Tours found out about this scam when a religious center from Myanmar contacted them, angry because they thought EGL Tours had stolen their Facebook page. But it was actually the scammers who had done it. The travel agency was frustrated because Facebook was slow to give them a blue verification tick, which would help people know their page is the real one. They had to contact Facebook's parent company, Meta, several times and even write to Mark Zuckerberg to get it.

Alex Chan from the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre warned that phishing scams are becoming more common and sophisticated. Scammers use new technologies to create fake websites and videos to trick people. He advised the public to be cautious about sharing personal information online. The police have received many reports of people losing money to these scams, and a payment company called Octopus warned its users about fake messages asking for personal details.