Police visit residents to help educate them about dangers of scams
When a woman in her 50s said her boyfriend whom she met online and had transferred $17,000 to had become uncontactable, Sgt Amanda Low knew the woman was a victim of an Internet love scam.
Sgt Low, who is part of the Community Policing Unit (CPU) at Jurong East Neighbourhood Police Centre, was knocking on doors to warn residents about scams in November 2020 when the woman said she was concerned about her online boyfriend's safety.
Speaking to The Straits Times on Thursday (March 3), Sgt Low, 26, said: "Her boyfriend, who claimed he is American, told her he needed the money to get through immigration to meet her in Singapore. When he got the money, he became uncontactable. But the woman still refused to believe she was a scam victim."
Sgt Low added that the woman lodged a police report after much persuasion.
CPU officers like Sgt Low, who has been at the job for one and a half years, spend much of their time visiting various Housing Board (HDB) blocks to educate the public about scams and inform them about its dangers.
ST shadowed two CPU officers, Sgt Low and Senior Staff Sgt(SS Sgt) Siva Prasath Pillai, 38, on Thursday as they visited residents of a HDB block in Jurong East.
SS Sgt Pillai, who has been working as a CPU officer for five and a half years, said such house visits are necessary to educate residents on how they can protect themselves from scammers.
"Door-to-door visits allow us interact with residents, share advisories based on current crime trends and warn them about new scam tactics going around," he said.
Each house visit can be as short as five minutes to as long as 20 minutes, depending on how busy the residents are and whether they are keen to speak to the officers.
Residents also get a goodie bag consisting of anti-scam pamphlets, a water bottle with anti-scam tips and hand sanitisers.
The police revealed last month that victims lost more than $633 million to various types of scams last year, up from $268.4 million in 2020.
"With the spike in the number of scam cases last year, scams remain a pressing concern for all of us. So it is important for us to continue to engage the community and adapt our outreach approach as scam variants evolve," SS Sgt Pillai said.
He noted that the top three scams last year were linked to jobs, non-banking-related phishing and e-commerce.
"Based on the top scams of concern, we inform residents of the scammers' modus operandi and the telltale signs they can look out for so they will not become victims of such scams," he added.
Ms Margaret Lee, 73, a resident who the CPU officers spoke to during their house visits on Thursday, told ST that she frequently gets calls and text messages from scammers but does not respond to them.
The retired library technician, who is single and lives alone, said: "I think it is good that the police are warning us about different types of scams. I have heard about scammers impersonating government officials, but I did not know it was so serious until the police told me about it. Now I know and will be more careful."
Addressing the challenges that come with house visits, Sgt Low said some residents may be sceptical to open up at first.
She said: "We get residents to warm up to us by making small talk like asking about the plants outside their flat. It helps to break the ice before we delve into detail about the various types of scams."
The CPU officers said while connecting with residents on a personal level is important, measures taken to engage the community go beyond house visits.
In a move to get the young involved in the fight against scams, officers at Jurong East Neighbourhood Police Centre have been working with National Police Cadet Corps (NPCC) students from Jurongville Secondary School since September last year to reach out to elderly residents via video calls to warn them about scams.
SS Sgt Pillai said: "We brief the NPCC students, who are police youth ambassadors, about current scam trends and they in turn will reach out to elderly residents via Zoom sessions and inform them about these scams."
A total of 17 NPCC cadets engaged with 20 elderly residents from Yuhua Constituency via a video call on Thursday to keep them informed about current scam trends.
One of the cadets was Nijam Mohideen Hardiana, 16, a Secondary 4 NPCC student at Jurongville Secondary School.
She said: "My grandparents are in their 70s and are not very technologically savvy so I'm worried about them falling for scams online. Through such sessions with the elderly, we can keep them informed about scam tactics and that makes me proud of my role as an NPCC cadet."
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