Police warn of new scam targeting bank customers: Victims have been cheated of $65k so far

Scammers targetting bank customers in Singapore here have cheated victims of at least $65,000 this November, the police said in a statement on Monday (Nov 25).

The police said in an advisory that they had received 12 reports of a new variant of scam trying to trick bank customers.

Victims would receive an SMS message claiming that either their ATM card had been blocked or deactivited or their bank acount had been locked.

The message also informs victims to call a specified number to reactivate their ATM card or bank account.

During the telephone conversation, the scammers would claim to be staff of the bank and ask for the victims' personal particulars, Internet banking details and One-Time Password.

The victims subsequently discovered that unauthorised transactions were made from their bank accounts.

The police advised members of the public to adopt the following crime prevention measures:

  1. Beware of unsolicited messages or calls from persons impersonating as staff from banks.  Scammers may use Caller ID spoofing technology to mask their actual phone number and display the bank’s number.

  2. Do not disclose your Internet banking details such as account username, Personal Identification Number (PIN) or One-Time Password (OTP) to anyone through phone, email or SMS.

  3. Do not respond to digital token authentication requests via phone calls if you did not initiate any Internet banking transaction. Do not authorise any suspicious authentication request.

  4. If you receive a suspicious call purportedly from your bank, hang up and call the hotline published on the bank’s website to verify the authenticity of the request. Do not call the number provided by the caller. 

If you wish to provide any information related to such scams, 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’.

To seek scam-related advice, you may call the anti-scam helpline at 1800-722-6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg

Join the Let’s Fight Scams campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages.

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