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Fraudulent SMSs Purportedly from Futubull or Interactive Brokers Leading to Hijacks of Your Securities Accounts and Huge Losses
2025-06-05

Fraudulent SMSs Purportedly from Futubull or Interactive Brokers Leading to Hijacks of Your Securities Accounts and Huge Losses

Have you recently received SMSs claiming to be from Futubull or Interactive Brokers? These scammers obtained your information, manipulated your account to buy and sell stocks and borrow loans, causing you to suffer significant losses.

 

Over the past three weeks, the Police have received 34 reports, with total losses exceeding HK$16 million. Individual losses ranged from HK$2,000 to HK$2.9 million. Some victims’ identities were fraudulently used to take out margin loans of HK$1.7 million. The victims, aged between their 20s and 60s, included professionals such as teachers and accountants.

 

Defrauding Tricks

1. Scammers impersonate Futubull or Interactive Brokers and send phishing SMSs with an embedded hyperlink, claiming that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority requires customers to update their tax information.

 

2. Once they click on the hyperlink, the customers will be directed to a fraudulent website and lured to enter their usernames, passwords and one-time passcodes.

 

3. The scammers then hijack the victims’ accounts, sell the stocks they hold and borrow money from securities firms to purchase multiple stocks with extremely low market values and turnovers. On the same day, the prices of these stocks drop rapidly, resulting in losses of the victims.

 

Our Advice

  • Futubull has clarified that it will not ask for customers’ account information via phone, SMS or email, and warned its customers not to click on suspicious hyperlinks. For enquiries, please call the 24-hour customer service hotline at 2523 3588 or contact online customer service via the Futubull application. The official SMS sender ID of Futubull is “#FUTU”;

  • Interactive Brokers has stated that it will not send login hyperlinks via SMS or instant messaging application and customers should log in directly on its official platform for any operations. For enquiries, please call the customer service hotline at 3107 8333;

  • Do not log on to any websites or download any attachments by hastily clicking on hyperlinks embedded in suspicious SMSs, emails or web pages;

  • Enter suspicious information on “Scameter” of CyberDefender or “Scameter+”, the mobile application of “Scameter”, for security check in addition to seeking verification from relevant organisations;

  • If in doubt, please call the “Anti-Scam Helpline 18222” for assistance.