“Out of the blue, a stranger is calling you, asking for money from you, trying to make a fool of you. Hang up now! Hang up! Hang up! Hang up!” Artiste Mr Chung Chun-to, affectionately known by his stage name “Kenny Bee”, was recently appointed as the Force’s “Anti-Deception Ambassador”. After filming a series of promotional materials for the Anti-Deception Coordination Centre (ADCC), Kenny Bee had a brainwave, worked his magic and turned the epigrammatic slogan into a jingle, making it even catchier and easier for everyone to remember.

Kenny Bee said he was indeed delighted to be invited to assume the role of “Anti-Deception Ambassador” to assist the Force in disseminating anti-scam messages to members of the public. He even shared a phone scam in the distant past, the victim of which was none other than Kenny Bee himself. “In one early morning many years ago, I was still in my sleep. Suddenly, I received a long-distance call from a man who claimed to be a singer from Mainland China. Sounding as if we had been close friends, he said he was arrested by public security officers in Shenzhen and he hoped I could help pay RMB30 000 to bail him out.”

At that moment, Kenny Bee was anxious to help someone in need. Not having an ounce of doubt, he believed that person turned to him because he did not want to alarm his family. Therefore, Kenny Bee sprang out of bed, went to the bank and remitted the sum of money to the account provided by that person.

After remitting the money, Kenny Bee returned home, sat himself down and ruminated over the whole incident. Then, he started to sense that something was not quite right. He said, “My wife asked me what was going on, so I told her what happened. However, as I recounted the process, the details really did not add up. In fact, I had met that singer from Mainland China only once or twice. If he was really desperate for help, he could have turned to other people instead, as I would be his last resort! But then again, RMB30 000 was not a small sum of money to many people, so it also seemed plausible to me that no one else could help him.”

Just as Kenny Bee was still wondering if he had been cheated, his mobile phone rang again. This time, that person did not even greet him. Instead, he cut to the chase and said, “I am actually with a friend. If you bail me out, you will have to bail both of us out!” By that point, it became crystal clear to Kenny Bee that the man was really a con artist, so he employed the foolproof tactic to fend him off — “hang up”!

ADCC designated August this year as the “Anti-Deception Month”. With Kenny Bee’s anti-scam jingle “Hang up! Hang up! Hang up!” taking centre stage, the campaign also featured a series of advertisements to alert the public to phone scams, including the massive posters displayed on the exterior of the Queen Elizabeth Stadium and also the billboard at the Kowloon entrance of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel.

Meanwhile, ADCC also collaborated with each Regional Crime Prevention Office (RCPO) to launch the “Project SmartSenior” on August 13, in order to propagate anti-scam messages to senior citizens through elderly service groups and relevant stakeholders. Simultaneously, officers from the Crime Prevention Bureau and each RCPO jointly organised a series of anti-scam promotional activities, such as visiting care homes to give out leaflets to the elderly residents, inviting artistes to film anti-scam shorts, producing WhatsApp stickers on the theme of averting online shopping fraud, as well as placing sizable advertisements in community newspapers, to remind readers to watch out for phone scams.