The Police would like to alert members of the public to a new scam variant. The scammers would post advertisements on Google Search, so that these advertisements would appear when the user searches for bank contact numbers. Since December 2021, at least 15 victims have fallen prey to such scams involving fake bank hotlines with losses amounting to at least $495,000.
In these cases, the victims would search for the banks’ contact number via Google Search as they wanted to seek the banks’ advice for various reasons. The victims would then see the scam advertisements appearing as the first few search results. These scam advertisements would provide a fake contact number for victims to contact.
Believing that these were bank hotlines, victims would call the number shown in the advertisement and speak to a scammer impersonating as a bank staff. After sharing the reasons for contacting the bank, victims would be informed that there were issues with their bank account, credit/debit cards or loan amount. The scammer would then instruct the victims to temporarily transfer the funds to bank accounts provided, under the pretext of resolving the bank account or credit/debit card issue, or to make a payment for the outstanding loan. In some cases, victims would receive an SMS with headers spoofing that of the bank to appear more authentic, claiming that the bank was facilitating a reset of the victims’ bank account as part of the “Let’s Fight Scam” Campaign by the Anti-Scam Centre and Singapore Police Force, or would state that the victim needed to transfer money for early loan settlement. Victims would only realise that they had been scammed when they contacted the bank via the authentic hotline to verify the new bank account number or when the bank contacted them to verify the reason for the large sum of money transferred.
Members of the public are advised to follow these crime prevention measures:
- Always verify the authenticity of the information with numbers listed on official bank website or behind the cards issued by the banks;
- Never transfer funds into bank accounts belonging to someone you do not know;
- Never disclose your personal information or banking details and OTP to anyone; and
- Report any fraudulent transactions to your bank immediately.
If you have any information relating to such crimes, please call the Police Hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit it online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. If you require urgent Police assistance, please dial ‘999’.
For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688. Join the ‘Spot the Signs. Stop the Crimes’ campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with your family and friends. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from becoming the next victim.
Annex A
Images of Scam SMS and Advertisements
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
19 January 2022 @ 1:10 PM