It started with a call from an overseas number on Dec 16 last year. In Mr KK’s case, the scammers sounded exactly like technical support employees - they were calm and professional, and took him through his issues slowly and patiently, he said. They would hoodwink victims into believing that they had committed a crime, similar to tactics seen in impersonation scams involving supposed “Chinese officials”, the police added. In other cases, the scammers would claim to be “cyber police” or from “cyber crime departments”. These apps, such as Teamviewer or AnyDesk, can then grant remote access to their computers.Īn image of software application Teamviewer from a scam victim. The police said the scammers would typically dupe victims into believing that there were issues with their internet connections and persuade them to install software applications. The interview was facilitated by the police, which on Wednesday warned the public against scammers impersonating employees from telecommunication service providers, such as Singtel and StarHub, or officers from government agencies offering technical support. He hopes that it would serve as a cautionary tale, so that others do not fall for the same trap.

The victim recounted his ordeal to reporters on Wednesday (Jan 6). The transfer did not go through, thanks to a vigilant teller and fraud risk team at OCBC bank, which alerted the police to the transaction on Dec 18 last year.

He ended up authorising a transfer of S$180,000 from his bank account. The victim, who spoke on condition of anonymity, wanted to be identified only as Mr KK. The Singaporean victim in his 50s did not notice that something was awry, as he thought many employees like him were working from home during the pandemic and had “no choice” but to do their work over the phone. The fraudsters claimed to be staff members from Singtel, Singapore’s largest telco, providing technical support over the phone. So an unsuspecting senior information technology executive readily fell for their ruse last month. SINGAPORE - They were calm and professional, and sounded every bit like employees of a telecommunications firm offering technical support. He ended up authorising a transfer of S$180,000.The victim did not grow suspicious as he thought many employees were doing their work by phone because of Covid-19.It started with a call from someone who claimed to be a Singtel technical support employee.

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