Fake Singtel SMS offering Apple Watch, AirPods claims 12 victims, losses of $20k
Since June, at least 12 people have fallen prey to a scam involving a fake Singtel SMS containing fraudulent links, with losses amounting to $20,000, the police said on Wednesday.
In this scam, victims would receive an unsolicited SMS urging them to redeem expiring Singtel points with rewards such as an Apple Watch or Apple AirPods supposedly on offer.
The SMS would state that the points were expiring on the day itself.
The selected reward item could only then be redeemed by topping up a nominal amount of cash, such as one dollar, along with the Singtel points.
The victims would be asked to key in their credit card details and One-Time Password on a fake Singtel webpage in order to make the payment. Victims only realised they had been scammed when unauthorised transactions were made with overseas merchants.
Singtel had posted an alert on its scam advisory page alerting customers to the scam on June 9, as well as on its social media platforms.
In the alert, the telco had advised customers not to click on the link and urged them to delete the message immediately.
Singtel customers who are unsure about the authenticity of links sent to them should call Singtel at 1688 or visit its scam advisory page www.singtel.com/secured to verify the information.
The police said that the public can take precautionary measures to avoid falling prey to scams such as downloading the ScamShield app and setting security features on their mobile device to enable two-factor (2FA) or multi-factor authentication for banks and setting transaction limits on internet banking transactions.
Fraudulent transactions should be reported to the bank immediately.
For more information on scams, the public can visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Helpline at 1800-722-6688.
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