SINGAPORE – The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) on Friday (Jan 21) warned of a scam e-mail where recipients are told to buy an “approval pass” to receive funds from billionaire Bill Gates.
The e-mail would purportedly be from Iras, signed off in the name of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, Mr Ng Wai Choong.
The e-mail would inform the recipients that their bank accounts had been blocked from receiving an unverified international funds transfer of $20 million from Mr Gates, co-founder of software giant Microsoft. He has a foundation, named after him and former wife Melinda, that does philanthropic work.
The recipients would be instructed to get a letter of confirmation from “the Bill Gate foundation” or buy an “international approval pass” to facilitate the transfer.
Iras advised the public to ignore the scam e-mail.
The tax authority said: “Please do not respond, provide any personal details, make any payment or follow any instructions by the sender.”
Those who have done so are advised to lodge a police report.
The latest scam comes after news that OCBC Bank will make goodwill payouts to all customers affected by SMS phishing scams. Nearly 470 customers lost at least $8.5 million in total last month.
Iras previously warned of another scam e-mail in November last year, which had documents attached that may have contained computer viruses.
The e-mail was sent from “Singapore Government Tax Authority” and claimed that recipients had unpaid…
