CarderPlanet
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A curious case occurred with a woman from Singapore last month. Jacqueline Hu was robbed of $44,487 from her accounts after downloading a third-party app from scammers.
While chasing free cheese in a mousetrap, Hu came across an eye-catching Facebook ad from a seafood vendor called "Fresh Market TGS." She was attracted to an offer that offered to buy a fillet of sea bass for just $10 with free shipping, after which she decided to contact the seller via Facebook.
"The ad didn't arouse my suspicions, and it didn't even occur to me that it was a scam," she told The Straits Times.
A social engineer disguised as a salesperson wrote Hu a WhatsApp message asking him to download a strange app called Grab&Go to his phone. When opening the app, she was asked to deposit $5 via PayNow as a "deposit" before placing an order, but she decided to clarify whether it was possible to pay for the order when it was delivered....
The seller of the non-existent fish assured her that he did not need bank details, but instead asked the woman to enter her name, address and phone number in the app to verify the purchase.
After a while, Hu noticed that her phone was "very hot" and the screen was "blank". When the phone rebooted twice on its own, she intuitively decided to delete the app and rushed to charge the phone, thinking that the battery was dead.
3 days later, when she decided to check the receipt of her salary, she discovered that "there were a few dollars left in her bank accounts." The fraudsters increased her transaction limit from $ 25,000 to $ 50,000 and transferred about $ 32,000 from her three POSB savings accounts to an account at Hong Leong Bank. Hu also found another $ 12,000 missing from 2 POSB credit card accounts.
"Everything is gone. I can't sleep and I can't eat. This was my hard-earned money, which is needed to pay for my youngest daughter's school education and insurance, " complained Jacqueline Hu.
Now the police are investigating this case. The woman claims that she "did not receive any one-time passwords (OTP) in SMS messages sent by the bank to confirm unauthorized transactions." Now she is very scared and upset.
From January to June 2023, 22,339 fraud cases were registered in Singapore, which is 64.5% more than in the same period last year (13,576 cases). The estimated damage is $ 334.5 million.
An illustrative case when you need to avoid putting any rubbish on your phone in the form of third-party applications [promos, discounts, promotions, that's all] and communicate with someone on WhatsApp.
While chasing free cheese in a mousetrap, Hu came across an eye-catching Facebook ad from a seafood vendor called "Fresh Market TGS." She was attracted to an offer that offered to buy a fillet of sea bass for just $10 with free shipping, after which she decided to contact the seller via Facebook.
"The ad didn't arouse my suspicions, and it didn't even occur to me that it was a scam," she told The Straits Times.
A social engineer disguised as a salesperson wrote Hu a WhatsApp message asking him to download a strange app called Grab&Go to his phone. When opening the app, she was asked to deposit $5 via PayNow as a "deposit" before placing an order, but she decided to clarify whether it was possible to pay for the order when it was delivered....
The seller of the non-existent fish assured her that he did not need bank details, but instead asked the woman to enter her name, address and phone number in the app to verify the purchase.
After a while, Hu noticed that her phone was "very hot" and the screen was "blank". When the phone rebooted twice on its own, she intuitively decided to delete the app and rushed to charge the phone, thinking that the battery was dead.
3 days later, when she decided to check the receipt of her salary, she discovered that "there were a few dollars left in her bank accounts." The fraudsters increased her transaction limit from $ 25,000 to $ 50,000 and transferred about $ 32,000 from her three POSB savings accounts to an account at Hong Leong Bank. Hu also found another $ 12,000 missing from 2 POSB credit card accounts.
"Everything is gone. I can't sleep and I can't eat. This was my hard-earned money, which is needed to pay for my youngest daughter's school education and insurance, " complained Jacqueline Hu.
Now the police are investigating this case. The woman claims that she "did not receive any one-time passwords (OTP) in SMS messages sent by the bank to confirm unauthorized transactions." Now she is very scared and upset.
From January to June 2023, 22,339 fraud cases were registered in Singapore, which is 64.5% more than in the same period last year (13,576 cases). The estimated damage is $ 334.5 million.
An illustrative case when you need to avoid putting any rubbish on your phone in the form of third-party applications [promos, discounts, promotions, that's all] and communicate with someone on WhatsApp.
