Police call repeat iPhone fraud incident 'regrettable'

Police said on Saturday they received more than 110 reports of suspected misuse of credit cards linked to iPhone Duo pre-sale transactions. The amount involved was about HK$4.6 million, with the largest single loss reaching nearly HK$230,000 – equivalent to about 12 iPhone Duos. No arrests have been made so far. Senior inspector Lo Chun-kong from the Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau said that it was “extremely regrettable” that the incident occurred again, following a similar situation last month. Lo pointed out that since then, the police have made multiple recommendations to Apple to implement 3D-Secure (3DS) to verify online credit card payments. “When a transaction has to be carried out using credit card, the issuing bank will request the card holder to carry out additional verification, for example, input a one-time password, or carry out confirmation using the bank's mobile app to safeguard the public's assets,” Lo said. “But unfortunately, Apple still had not activated 3DS during the pre-sale on Friday night, and failed to stop the issuance of similar fraud cases.” He went on to say that the force was highly concerned that Apple has not actively fulfilled its corporate responsibilities, which fraudsters exploited. The force hopes Apple will implement effective measures to prevent similar cases from happening, he said. Lo noted that the incident this time involved multiple banks, but did not offer more details. The case has been classified as “obtaining property by deception”. Regarding the iPhone 18 Pro series incidents last month, Lo stated that over 1,570 reports were received, with total losses amounting to approximately HK$31 million. Edited by Azam Khan

2026-10-17 18:25:00