Fake FPS 'Buyer Protection' Sites Trick Users Into Handing Over Bank Details

According to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, two fraudulent websites are posing as Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited (HKICL) to target people who use the FPS payment system. Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited has identified the sites itself and confirmed it has no connection to either one.

The two fake sites are fpshktk.sbs and tknewfps.cc. Both present themselves as a 'Buyer Online Protection' service for FPS transactions. That framing is the first step in the scam, because it gives a worried buyer a reason to hand over sensitive details voluntarily.

How the approach works

The sites offer three things: a refund to the buyer, a way to report an unauthorised online transaction, and general support for online transaction problems. Anyone who has made a payment through FPS and later worries something went wrong is the exact person this is built for. The offer of a refund or a dispute process matches what a genuine buyer protection service would promise.

Once someone engages, the sites ask for a bank name, a bank account number, and the bank account holder's name. The stated reason is to top up and withdraw money from a virtual wallet on the platform. That step is where the scam actually extracts value. A real refund process never needs a user to fund a wallet on the refunding party's own platform first.

If a user hesitates or asks questions, the sites hand them to someone impersonating customer service staff. This person's role is to keep the user moving through the process and to resolve doubts that might otherwise stop the transaction.

What the sequence shows

The scam depends on one single moment: the point where a user is asked to fund a wallet rather than simply receive money. A genuine refund arrives in an account. It does not require the account holder to pay money in first. Everything before that point, the branding, the mention of FPS, the promise of protection, exists to make that one request feel procedural rather than suspicious.

Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited says it will not directly provide FPS service to individual members of the public, and will not proactively contact them under usual circumstances. That rules out a key claim the fake sites rely on, that HKICL itself is reaching out to help.

The genuine HKICL websites are www.hkicl.com.hk and fps.hkicl.com.hk. Anyone who receives a suspicious call, website link, or other communication claiming to be from HKICL can call the general line, 2533 1111, to check it directly. Anyone who believes they have already been caught out should report it to the police without delay.