News of online frauds has been rampant in recent years, with victims of online romance frauds often losing millions of dollars. In the financial sector, numerous self-proclaimed stock market gurus (KOLs) offer courses to lure unsuspecting investors into the stock market, profiting directly or indirectly by every means. In the property agency industry, practitioners in vested interests constantly release biased signals that the property market has been bottoming out, enticing buyers to enter the market so that they can earn commissions and other benefits.
The agency industry is accustomed to making fuss and market manipulation. However, market promotion has recently become more aggressive. In the past, agency firms often used subtle, positive news to draw attention. Nowadays, they adopt a more direct approach in handling matters. Until recently, an agency company’s senior executive announced that he had personally purchased a residential unit for a new project which was awarded to his company as a principal sales representative. Obviously, this firm completely ignored any allegations of conflict of interest.
In addition, a salesperson of these companies has claimed that he had successfully flipped a small unit for a profit of hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the corporate level, these companies’ research departments continuously released unreliable property market data, emphasizing that the market has bottomed out, and they also claimed that mortgage installments were lower than rental expenses, repetitively misleading buyers purchasing in the market.
Many misled buyers who purchased premises in recent years have suffered significant losses. For example, 
the ever popular ONE INNOVALE development in Fanling two years ago recorded nineteen loss-making transactions this year, with an average loss of HK$750,000, representing an average loss of 15% of the property price.
Furthermore, a well-known property agency repeatedly promoted new pre-sale apartments in Foshan last year. As a result, this project had turned out to be an unfinished building, causing heavy losses for many elderly investors. When this agent held accountable to this incident, he claimed that he had also bought a unit in the same development and he was a victim either. Until recently, this agent re-marketed a property project in Zhongshan, and its boss again touted that local property prices had bottomed out, urging buyers to buy at a bargain price. If you believe in his recommendations to buy in, and suffer losses later, you can only blame yourself with ignorance.
In today's world, business is tough, and diverse types of scammers are emerging across different industries. One can easily become a victim without careful observation. Hopefully, Hong Kong will not become a city of scammers capital, and everyone can live and work in peace and contentment.
