Hong Kong designer William Tang's Facebook account hacked: Cyber crime in 2021: The Pisstake

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William Tang, a fine, talented fashion designer from Hong Kong, has been making online ripples - unbeknownst to him. His Facebook account was hacked a few weeks ago and the hackers have been sending out cryptic messages to his friend's circle - a veritable list of who's who (and a good dose of who-the-fk-is-that?!), promising them all cash rewards, opportunities to pick up great gifts and the like. Inevitably numbers, bank account details are inquired and unsuspecting people disclose far too much information - much to their own  inevitable detriment. 

This scam has been going along swimmingly for a while until a few alarm bells were raised earlier this week. This entire biz came into my peripheral vision as, of all people to hit up for cash (wait for it), it came to littl' ol' me! Ha.  

I cannot highlight this enough, - the gentleman Tang has NOTHING to do with this smoke and mirror show - and as I write this, is going on in full steam. 

Having interviewed the media-friendly designer in the past (for South China Morning Post, Style and other magazines), our conversations have not gone beyond the usual Hellos and How-do-you-dos at the dos we often find each other. 

Imagine my surprise that after years of near-silence and polite nods, I get a message that he's got an invite for me. Fair game, as I've been in the media for the past 16 years, this is far from an unusual activity. A slight aberration from norm, he wanted my phone number to send a code. 

This being 2021, season two of hellish COVID 19 - invitations are no longer tactile cards and  personal handouts/invites but zoom codes, links and a verifiable password via WhatsApp. No biggie - I sent him my WhatsApp number. 

Within seconds, I got a message and code number on my screen - with the words Kodu paylasmayin - which is Turkish (thanks Google translate!) for  'Do not share the code.'

In my infinite wisdom, what do I do? Share the code back to the account obviously. Almost seconds after that, I got the 'You've won HK$1,150 from Fortress! Then: this happened. 

I mean, when you think investigative journalism and reportage, I know you think of me... 😉

However, having been blocked by... whoever that is, so ends my yellow brick road to... 60 minutes. 

PS: I messaged the official Instagram account of Tang to let him know his Facebook has been hacked and all this razzle-dazzle is going on.