The Judiciary Police (PJ) investigated in the first two months of this year 83 phishing SMS scam cases involving a total loss of over 1.5 million patacas, Anti-fraud Coordination Centre Chief Investigator Cheong Un Hong said yesterday.
The Judiciary Police and telecom operator CTM held a special press conference yesterday afternoon at the PJ headquarters in Zape, warning the public against phishing SMS scams impersonating “CTM”.
During the press conference, Cheong noted that among the 83 cases, 75 were “phony CTM phishing SMS scams”, in which scammers instructed their victims to log on to the link in the SMS and enter their credit card details including security codes under the guise of “bonus point expiry” and “top-up offer”, cheating their victims out of 1.44 million patacas in total.
Cheong said that so far this year, 135 phishing websites have been blocked by telecom operators, urging members of the public once again to always verify the authenticity of the contents of an SMS received with unknown links through official channels, and never to click on the links and enter credit card numbers, transaction passwords or authentication codes in the SMS, as well as to immediately report any suspected fraud to the Judiciary Police’s Anti-Fraud Enquiry hotline on 8800 7777, or the crime report hotline at 993, for assistance.
Judiciary Police (PJ) Anti-fraud Coordination Centre Chief Investigator Cheong Un Hong speaks during yesterday’s special press conference about scammers purporting to represent telecom operator “CTM” by sending phishing SMSes. – Photo: Yuki Lei
