Police on Thursday expressed concern about an increase in online shopping fraud, despite overall technology crimes dipping slightly last year.

There were 11,559 cases involving online shopping fraud last year - a more than 29 percent year-on-year increase, with losses almost doubling to nearly HK$360 million.

Scams linked to Facebook alone accounted for more than 40 percent of the cases. Officers said scammers had created social media pages with fake reviews and comments to trick people into making purchases.

Superintendent Baron Chan of the Cyber Security Division said changing shopping habits also contributed to the spike in cases.

“In the past, citizens may not be interested in trading some luxury products with quite a high amount of value,” he said.

“But in recent years, even some very high amount, expensive products, they would trade in online platforms, for example, watches and even involving some exchange of currency and cryptocurrency.”

Major events have also become a target with shows and concerts returning to the city. Over 15 percent of last year’s online shopping scams involved fake tickets sale, Chan noted.

The force added that phishing links to steal banking information and bounced cheques were two other common tactics used by bad actors.

Chan shared these tips to avoid scams.

“First of all, for all buyers, they should deal with some reputable sellers. For the best interests of all, they should choose to have the trading or money transaction in person.

“Secondly, especially for some concert tickets or big event tickets, they should buy the ticket through some official channels.

“Whenever trading involving cheques, citizens should pay attention to the available balance instead of the current or ledger balance,” he said.

Overall, there were 33,903 tech crime cases last year, a less than one percent decrease compared to 2023.