Police warn of scammers using fake e-wallet websites to target those selling gaming accounts

The police are warning of a new scam in which victims were cheated into creating e-wallets on fake websites when they posted their gaming accounts for sale on social media platforms.

In these cases, the scammers expressed interest in purchasing the victims’ gaming account and would instruct the victims to access links to fake websites (e.g. baowushouyou.com, bianjieshouyou.com, 85shouyou.com, xinyushouyou.com, etc) to create e-wallets to receive payment.

During the account application process, victims would come across a 'Terms and Conditions' page, indicating that a fee would be incurred if there were errors in their account application form.

After setting up their e-wallet, victims would receive call or messages on WhatsApp from numbers typically beginning with +6011.

The caller, who were typically conversed in Mandarin, would claim to be a customer service officer from the e-wallet companies and would inform the victims that their e-wallet account had been frozen due to errors in their account application.

Victims were then instructed to make a fund transfer to bank accounts provided in order to unfreeze their e-wallet accounts to withdraw the funds.

Believing that they had indeed made a mistake in their account application, they therefore complied with the instructions to make payment to individual bank accounts to unfreeze their accounts.

In some cases, victims were told to transfer more money as the amount transferred were incorrect. They would realise that they had fallen prey to a scam when they are not able to withdraw the funds from the e-wallet and the buyer became uncontactable.

Members of the public are should be wary of the following red flags when encountering such situations:

• Dubious websites claiming to provide e-wallet services;

• Request for fund transfer to bank accounts belonging to someone you had not met before.

If you have information related to such crimes or if you are in doubt, please call the police hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit it online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness.

For urgent police assistance, call '999'

Members of the public can find more information on scams on www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688.

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