Hong Kong banking giant HSBC Ltd has warned its customers about a fraudulent Internet site bearing the bank's logo and offering personal services, and officials said Saturday they were seeking assistance from US authorities.
The fake site copied the design of HSBC's Hong Kong Web site and included a link to a logon page that asked customers to enter their bank user ID and password, the bank said in a statement Friday.
Hong Kong's police and de facto central bank were seeking help from their foreign counterparts to tackle the fraudulent Web site, police spokeswoman Cherry Yau said. She declined to give further details.
An official at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the fake Web site was registered in the US. The official declined to elaborate.
Yau said the site -- with an address similar to the bank's -- had been shut down by yesterday morning. However, local media found that it still existed under a new domain name.
The bank reminded customers to ensure they are connected to a genuine HSBC Web site before typing in any confidential personal data. It also asked customers to contact its officials if they had revealed their data to the fake Web site.
Yau said no HSBC customers have reported being victims of the Internet scam.
Reports of Internet scams targeting local banks and other financial institutions have appeared in recent months.
In September, a Web site offered offshore banking services under a name similar to the Bank of East Asia's former subsidiary.
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