(Yicai Global) March 19 -- Men are more prone to fall victim to fraud than women, especially in terms of schemes related to financial issues and those targeting people's emotions, a report from tech giant Tencent Holdings finds.

Male victims accounted for 68 percent of close to 12.5 million cases of fraud reported on Tencent 110, the Shenzhen-based firm's online security platform, according to its Anti-Fraud White Book report. Men were more prone to emotional and financial scams, while women fell for "low investment-high income" schemes more readily.

The report covers big data from last year related to 192 kinds of fraud cases in 10 major categories.

Scams related to telecommunications rose by over one-third during last year, while close to three-quarters of fraud took place online. The most common types of trickery include sales fraud, accounting for 31.8 percent, scams related to part-time jobs with 20.8 percent and rebate fraud with 12.9 percent.

In terms of sales scams, those related to clothing ranked first, making up 13.5 percent, while those concerning in-game transactions accounted for 11.6 percent. Those related to online sales comprised 9.8 percent and accounting scams made up 6.6 percent.

From a regional perspective, southern China's Guangdong province ranked first with 14.1 percent of total complaints, way ahead of Jiangsu and Shandong, which followed with 6.1 percent each.

Forms of online fraud is changing and models are becoming more international and diversified, the report stated. Short video platforms are becoming a new tool for scammers to draw traffic. By releasing tempting content, they can lure users in. They are also gradually looking to other markets, especially Southeast Asia, and the cross-border nature of such activities makes it more difficult to crack cases.

Tencent 110 is an online platform where users can report fraud and other violations. It has set up partnerships with 32 police divisions nationwide to crack criminal gangs online and offline. Some 453 suspects have been arrested to date in relation to cases, which involve losses totaling more than CNY100 million (USD14.9 million).

Editor: William Clegg