People walk past OCBC Bank. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
Consumers in Singapore recently found themselves in a sea of scams after several customers realized their funds are missing from their accounts. While SMS and phishing email scams remain high in Southeast Asia, this time scammers were able to make off with a high amount of funds from numerous account holders.
The OCBC smishing scam, which is phishing via SMSs had rocked the island nation in late 2021 and early 2022. Towards the end of 2021, the bank had already seen a sharp rise in the number of smishing scams impersonating them. Despite multiple pieces of advice and warnings made to the public, many still fell victim to it.
Cybercriminals trick victims by sending SMSes purportedly from the bank claiming there are issues with their bank accounts or credit cards. The SMSes contain a link to a fraudulent website disguised as a legitimate bank website requesting banking information and passwords.
The total number of victims who had fallen prey to the scam is 790 with total loss amount of SGD$ 13.7 million. About 80% of the amount lost occurred during the year-end festive period of 23 December 2021 to 30 December 2021. Over the Christmas weekend, there were 186 customers affected, with about SGD$ 2.7 million lost on these three days alone. While the bank is working with the Singapore Police Force’s Anti-Scam Centre to try to help customers recover funds lost through these fraudulent transactions, once the money has…
