Police said efforts to educate the elderly have led to a significant drop in the number of so-called “Guess Who” phone scams – in which fraudsters pose as an old friend or relative of the victim.

The number of “Guess Who” phone scams, which mainly targets victims aged 65 or above, were down by 48 percent last year, police commissioner Raymond Siu said on Saturday after attending a Commercial Radio program.

“That’s why last year, we particularly focused our effort to deliver these anti-scam messages to the elderly,” he said.

Siu said police are working with The Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) to combat other types of telephone scams.

This comes following reports of suspected scam text messages carrying the hashtag prefix, to trick victims into thinking that they were sent by the authority.

In December 2023, the authority launched a short message service (SMS) sender registration scheme, in which companies and organizations participating send text messages under their registered IDs with the prefix “#”.

“In order to tackle other telephone scams, we need to find out the reasons as well as the victimised group, so as to work with all stakeholders, in particular the telecommunications industry and also the OFCA,” Siu said.

“We set up a specific working group back in September 2022. We continue to hold regular meetings with them, in order to come up with different measures to tackle this sort of telephone scam,” he added.

Siu reminded residents to remain alert to potential scam messages, especially those with hyperlinks.