Dear Editor,

Our housing estate is renowned for its peaceful living conditions for the elderly. Unfortunately, crimes related to cheating the old people have been rampant for the past month. A gang of criminals has been using fake products to trick our old residents into giving them money. Therefore, I am writing to describe a recent incident about an old woman being tricked by criminals and explain what remedial measures the estate association can adopt to raise the public’s attention about this kind of fraud and prevent this from happening in the future.

This letter will be divided into two parts. The first part is about how the old person was tricked recently while the last part introduces some measures the estate association can adopt to tackle the problem and protect people from being tricked in the future.

The victim in the incident is an old lady who was fooled into buying a great deal of dried abalone, which were claimed to be from Japan and worth thousands of dollars. However, in reality those were produced in mainland and hardly worth a few hundred bucks. They pretended to be the hawker, selling dried abalone on the street. The victim approached and started to examine the goods, while the accomplice, disguised as a passerby, also approached and made comments on the cheap dried abalones. She made statements such as how good quality the dried abalones were in, how cheap those were, and how profitable it would be to buy those here and sell it somewhere else. Convinced that the accomplice was some random person who accidentally passed by, the old lady, the victim was persuaded that buying those in the given price was no doubt a good idea.

However the old lady was taken aback while hearing how much those cost in reality. Now the accomplice said she would share the cost with the victim half-half, with the intention to buy those dried abalones herself. Again, thinking the accomplice to be a kind, goodhearted woman, she thought it was the opportunity of the year to make a fortune. With her guard down, the victim paid $3000, only to be told by her son that those abalones were available in proper stores for around $300.There is no denying that what criminals are into is simply money. The criminals have no intention to assault the old people. Instead they crave for money, or some valuable things. If the old people do not have enough money to buy the service, they may also sacrifice other valuable things, like mobile phones and gold rings.

As a matter of fact, in order to prevent the old people from being tricked and deter the criminals from doing these anymore, the estate association can take some measures.

To start with, the estate association can put great effort into civic education. It can  print some pamphlets describing this kind of incident in detail so as to teach the old people the ways to protect themselves. For example, they should always contact their sons or daughters first so as to confirm everything before giving money to the criminals. Also, they should report to the police if they find any suspected person. These pamphlets can be distributed in the estate in order to capture people’s attention.

Moreover, it can organize talks in many community centers in different districts regularly. Our residents are thus able to know how victims are tricked, learn how to identify the techniques criminals used to swindle people out of their savings and what can be done to fight against them. What has to be added is people should be aware of anything abnormal behavior of the elderly of their family, for instance, any valuable properties or a large amount of money taken in cash, or withdrawn from the bank altogether. Reminded and alert, in this way, the residents can hardly be tricked.

Besides, in order to deter the criminals from doing this, the police station can be informed to increase the number of patrols in different housing estates. Policemen can put on casual wear and pretend to be interested in the merchandise by asking about it as passers-by. Therefore, the criminals can be trapped and caught easily. By working hand in hand with the police, the criminals are expected to prevent from repeating the act again.

Although many of the involved criminals were caught already, having such experience, in future, the residents will be aware of any potential offences to protect themselves and their properties. I hope that with an increased awareness towards crime of the public, the amount of trickery, an awful and dishonest crime, can be reduced by a large extent.

Yours faithfully,

5B Ho Yuet Wun

HHCKLA Buddhist Ching Kok Secondary School