The Judiciary Police (PJ) warned members of the public of a “phony MPay phishing SMS scam” in a statement yesterday, noting that 11 residents were affected by the scam between October 25 and November 3 that led to a total loss of nearly 80,000 patacas.
The statement pointed out that the Judiciary Police have this year received many reports from members of the public related to phishing SMS scams, and repeatedly issued “Police Information Circulars” in response urging people to be wary of bogus SMS messages from those impersonating telecommunications or payment apps, among others. The Judiciary Police issued another warning about the “phony MPay phishing SMS scam” on October 24.
The statement noted that the victims of the recent scam received a fraudulent SMS claiming that their MPay points were going to expire soon, adding that they would have to log onto a website and input the user names and passwords of their MPay accounts to redeem points for gifts.
Upon receiving a number of transaction SMS messages from the bank linked to their MPay account, the victims realised that they had logged onto a fake website, according to the statement.
The PJ Anti-Fraud Coordination Centre urged members of the public to check SMS messages from companies carefully, adding that they should always verify messages they find suspicious by calling the respective company’s official customer service hotline, the statement underlined.
The statement pointed out that one should never click on unidentified links and never enter bank account details, transaction passwords, or credit card details to prevent one’s bank account information or credit card details from being stolen.
Suspected fraud should immediately be reported to the Judiciary Police’s Anti-Fraud Enquiry hotline on 8800 7777 or the crime report hotline at 993 for assistance.
This poster provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) yesterday warns members of the public of the “phony MPay phishing SMS scam”.
