The Judiciary Police (PJ) reminded residents in separate statements on Saturday and yesterday to be wary of messages with links to websites from unknown sources and not to click on them or provide any personal information, in order to protect one’s bank accounts or credit cards from unauthorised use.
According to the Judiciary Police’s Saturday statement, the police recently received reports from a number of people who have received fraudulent text messages with links to websites from a fake points and rewards platform.
Also, the statement said, the police received another report of a suspected fake text message from a takeaway platform, which asked victims to also redeem their points as soon as possible before they expired, with the aim of tricking the victims into logging on to a fake website and entering their mobile phone numbers and credit card details to redeem the points.
After entering the relevant personal data as instructed, the statement said, the victim was immediately notified by their financial institution of an unidentified credit card transaction and suspected that the credit card information had been stolen through the fake takeaway platform website.
According to the statement, after investigation, it was confirmed that no such SMS was sent by the real takeaway platform.
Besides, the Judiciary Police said in a separate statement yesterday that it has again received reports of fraudulent SMS messages involving fake courier companies, which claim that the victims’ parcels were delayed and could not be delivered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, asking them to log onto the website of the fake courier company and provide their personal information and pay a “surcharge”.
The Judiciary Police again urged the public to remain vigilant at all times to prevent unscrupulous individuals from obtaining personal information or defrauding the public of money, and that anyone who receives such messages must be cautious and seek verification from reliable sources.
Anyone who suspects that they have been hit by a scam or other crimes should call the PJ Fraud Enquiry Hotline on 8800 7777 or our Crime Reporting Hotline on 993.
This image provided by the Judiciary Police on Saturday urges residents to be wary of links in SMS messages.
