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Is Telegram the social media platform to use for communicating with your friends and colleagues?

Telegram claimed to have good privacy and security features.

May be because of these good privacy and security features, you can notice there are a lot of scams group using this platform.

Below I am sharing some messages from Telegram when my friend tried to do a hookup and what was offered.

We found a lot of these types of posts in Telegram, after a while, the user would delete their accounts.

After a few days, they would create another new account with a new name

We tried a few, and managed some hookup to the stage of meeting up.

Usually the ladies will not tell you their address, they will give you an address near their houses and claimed once you reached there, message her and she will come to pick you to her place.

So we went to the agreed meeting place, instead of a lady, here came a man with tatoo, we told him we would not be going with him, luckily there were a few policemen nearby patrolling.

The next day, the user account of that Telegram account deleted her account.

If you look at the three messages below, they look similar and are from three different Telegram accounts.

All three messages indicated the same meeting place. thus this could be a syndicate operating to lure some hungry people to trap.

Message No. 1

Masturbating sex video call $50

Just video call $20

Nudes $30

sex service

1 hour $100 booking deposit $50

90 minutes $150 booking deposit $50

2 hours $200 booking deposit $80

3 hours $300 booking deposit $100

4 hours $400 booking deposit $120

Booking fee by bank transfer

Message No.2

Sex

1 hour $100

90 minutes $150

2 hours $200

3 hours $250

Over night $300

Shot :unlimited shot

Booking fee is $50 by transfer

Message No. 3

Sex

1 hour $100

90 minutes $150

2 hours $200

3 hours $250

Over night $300

Shot :unlimited shot

Booking fee is $50 by transfer

Every time when you create a group in Telegram, within minutes, you can see a lot of females join the group and offer their services.

As the Admin of the group, you have to spend times to remove all these names.

I just wonder why Telegram allow these types of people joining.

All Telegram did was when you complained, they would show a message this message could not be displayed as it contained pornography or something to that effect.

as a result of which, it make the group pages very messy and meaningless.

And this filtering only happen after you complained, if you did not complain, you could see all the pornography in the group page, openly canvassing for business.

Why is Telegram allowing this type of posting on its platform?

It seems that Telegram only take action when some one complained, if not they will allow the posting of pornography in their platform.

We can notice all these pornography messages have bad influence and scammers and people with bad intention are taking advantage of it.

Since the privacy and security setting in Telegram is so good, I think even Telegram do not know who are the people using their platform for crime, vice and illegal activities.

You may want to read more about it in the link below.

https://www.gearrice.com/update/this-is-why-scammers-and-criminals-use-telegram-according-to-experts/

I am writing this based on what I come across in Singapore, a tiny city country and have a lot of scammers or whoever with ill intentions are using the platform.

The following news report in The Straits Times of Singapore gave some useful information about how the scam took place.

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/more-than-50-people-duped-by-scammers-through-telegram-this-year

Are any Authorities taking measure to control the social media platform to ensure the platforms take responsibilities in what contents are posted via their platforms?

social media like Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Signal and Wechat as well as Tik Tok, are they doing anything to prevent users post offending, malicious and pornographic contents.

Or they take the easy way claiming it is the freedom of expression and use of their media platforms?

Some may claim there is no way they can monitor all the contents since thousands users are posting every minute, and the monitoring is a voluminous job.

Since nowadays every one is using AI to do the work, surely the platform owners can do something to curb these types of contents appearing in their platforms.

Advancement of technology pose a serious threat to the security of ordinary people.

The security and privacy claimed by certain social media platforms actually work into the hand of criminals and scammers , who love this type of features.

Most of the users of Telegram do not use their real names in creating their accounts, and Telegram allow that.

Why don't Telegram insist of real person registration since they claim their platform has privacy and security?

Government is asking its citizen to be more vigilant in the use of social media, however if the authority is serious, they should stop all these malicious contents in the social media by making the platform owners be more responsible and make them accountable for all contents and any crimes committed.

Anyone who has been scammed using the platform, the platform owner should be charged for abetting for the crime.

Some useful prevention methods you may want to read.

There is this article in the link below for you to learn more about Telegram scam.

https://www.csa.gov.sg/alerts-advisories/Advisories/2022/ad-2022-013

if you have any comments and feedback or want to share your experience, you may want to put it in the comments section.

I have been discussing this scam topic a few times.

It seems that the matter is getting worse as days go by.

Every day, there is a person falls to scammers' tricks and scam.

Despite all the alerts and measures, still there are people being scammed daily and losing their hard-earned money.

Some old folks have their savings wiped out by scammers.

People said old people tend to fall victims easily, however I had read news reports about even IT professional fall victims to scammers.

The latest hacking to get your money as seen in WhatsApp message as follows:

"Forwarded as received.

URGENT

Some people are going to upload pictures of the fighting in Jewish settlements on WhatsApp. The file is called Seismic Waves CARD.

Do not open it, it will hack your phone in 10 seconds and cannot be stopped in any way.

They talked about it on TV. A cyber attack on us from all kinds of directions is also starting.

Pass the information on to family and friends."

What are the popular scams nowadays?

Every day, we seem to see people fall victims with scams in the following manners:

1. Job scams

2. Malware scams.

3. Phishing scams.

  1. Job scams

There are a lot of job scams, supposedly from job portals.

Scammers would message you via WhatsApp or any social media platform to introduce you to some jobs with commission.

I used to receive a few in my WhatsApp saying my profile in the job portal fit the requirement they are looking for.

The work involved giving some comments and reviews, by doing so, can earn some commission, about $35 per review, and one day at least do 2 reviews and comments.

If one falls into this trick, he will notice after getting commissions as promised for the first few reviews, then the payment stops.

Then, they will say you need to pay certain money to go for higher commissions.

After a while, you notice the commissions do not come in and realize the scam is in operation.

Another example of scam which i just received in my WhatsApp group

"AS RECEIVED

My cousin received a call, asking if he had been vaccinated, if vaccinated to press 1.

If not vaccinated, press 2. As a result, he pressed 1, the phone was blocked and his online bank information/account were all transferred. Please be Alert and Careful and forward to more people to know about this new trick/scam. Forwarded as received.

2

Your BANK Account can be Empty without Notice.

There is a HIGH TECHNOLOGY SCAM going on at this time called SIM SWAP FRAUD, it is said that hundreds of people have been affected, they suddenly found that their bank accounts were EMPTY

How does it work?

1. The new scam called SIM SWAP starts like this... Your phone network will suddenly go blank / Zero Signal / Zero Bar and after a while, you will get a call.

2. The caller will tell you that he is calling from your mobile phone company depending on your network and that there is a problem in your mobile network.

3. He / she will instruct you to Please press 1 on your phone to regain network. PLEASE... at this stage
don't Press anything, Just hang up or END the call.

If you press 1 ,
the network will appear suddenly and in a moment your phone will go blank again (Zero Bar) and with that action, your phone is ALREADY HACKED

In a few seconds they will empty your bank account, and you won't receive any notification. About it.

It will appear as if your line has been disconnected with no Network, meanwhile your SIM has been CHANGED.

The danger here is, you won't get any transaction alerts.

Let's be very careful.

Please, send this info to your contacts, loved ones and friends.
Fraud is increasing day by day.

Received from a Cybersecurity Group

Many people have been affected.
Please share so that more people are saved from this SCAM!

Copied"

  1. Malware Scams

Malware always embed in the link sent by scammer.

if one clicks on the link in the message, it will activate the malware and your device will be infected with the malware.

depending on the device you are using, if you use your mobile phone, and you have been using the device for your banking activities, chances are once you click on the link, the malware will work in your mobile phone.

the end result is devastating, the malware will infect the device then the phishing will capture the information in your phones and send to the person who implant the malware.

  1. Phishing

to quote from https://www.avertium.com/blog/ransomware-phishing-malware-difference

to quote-- "Phishing attacks are often a vessel to deliver malware that masquerades as a communication from a trusted or reputable source. This type of cybercrime can come in the form of an email, a phone call (fishing), or a text message (smishing). The most common conduit is through email, with 96% of phishing attacks in 2019 leveraging the tool." unquote.

A phishing attack may look or sound like it’s from a company, friend, or family member, even someone within your own organization and contain a request for privileged information, or a link or attachment that results in a malicious download. Common phishing scams seem to come from a bank, credit card company, social media site, or online payment site.

More sophisticated phishing attacks can be a fraudulent invoice, an alert about supposed suspicious activity from your account, a coupon or reward offer, or a fake confirmation notice. Phishing kits allow cybercriminals with limited expertise to spam attacks with authentic-appearing emails or text messages.

Easy Page Buildr

Introduction

In the first part of this, I talked about what are types of Facebook Scams.

Now we want to focus on how to avoid Facebook scams.

This may not be fool proof, but at least we need to develop best practice as much as possible.

Normally we get scammed because of our casual and don't care attitude, which may cause us dearly eventually.

some things we can do while using Facebook

1. Set your privacy setting correctly.

I will not go into details of this, all you have to do is to go to the privacy setting and set the privacy setting which suit you.

2. Enable two steps authentication,

some may find this tedious, well, normally if you do not want to suffer this pain, you may suffer a more serious pain later.

3. Check carefully before accepting friends request.

Sometimes this may be a bit difficult to deal with, especially for those who are using Facebook Page for their businesses.

If that is the case, then you may have to exercise your discretion and intelligent to determine whether to accept the friends' request. you may want to carry out a due diligent online to have some ideas of the so called friends' requests.

4. Do not click on any link you come across in any FaceBook post you are reading.

Normally when we are surfing some Facebook posts, they are some links in the posts.

It is advisable not to click on the link unless you know the pages and posts you are reading are from reliable sources.

Sometimes, we may surf some news posts posted and try to understand and learn more about certain subjects, then you may have to be extra careful about the links in the posts you are reading.

5. Change your passwords every few months.

It is advisable to change the password of your login now and then, preferably after a few months.

This is quite a good practice, as it keeps you on alert and not easy for others to hack into your password.

More so if you have a very strong password involving lower case, upper case, character and number and preferably more than 8 characters long.

6. Check your login history and review any irregular visits.

sometimes if we review the history of our login, if we discover some irregularity, we need to take step to rectify, perhaps report to Facebook immediately.

7. Do not do your online shopping in Facebook if possible.

I normally do not do my shopping online, as I like to support the provision shop near my place.

Shopping on shopping platform may be good but on Facebook? I would not do that.

Why can't you do it on the Merchant's website? why must it be done in Facebook?

these are some steps you may want to consider.

Now we talk about what we can do off Facebook to avoid the scam.

1. Ensure your computer or any device you used to login Facebook is properly protected.

when using your computer or laptop or mobile phone to login to Facebook, ensure you have a good operating system which is updated.

you may also want to ensure you shield your device from public eyes when you are doing the login.

2. Report any irregularity or emails from "Facebook".

Most of the time, we tend to just click on the inbox of our email when we see it is from Facebook, without checking clearly the email domain whether it is from Facebook.

If we do come across this fictitious emails, we need to report to Facebook directly.

3. Have a good anti virus program in your device.

It goes without saying that a good anti virus software help to eliminate the threat and harm.

4. Use your common sense and logic.

Sometimes common sense is still the best control we have to avoid the scam.

If we can apply common sense and come to our senses, we will detect the scam easily.

What happen if you have been scammed, what can you do to minimize the damages?

1. Report to Facebook immediately.

If you think your Facebook account has been compromised, you need to report to Facebook immediately,

Hopefully they will take action and recover your account for you.

To me, Facebook should be doing the due diligence when one wants to open an account with them,

2. Change the login password.

as mentioned earlier, it is good that you have some complex password and change your password now and then.

3. Freeze the credit.

once you know your account has been hacked, you should call the banks and credit cards companies to freeze your account immediately.

4. Inform banks and credit cards companies to stop the credit cards.

the timing of informing the banks and credit cards companies will minimize your losses due to the hacking of your accounts.

prompt reporting may also help you to recover your losses.

5. Check your device and re-set if need be.

checking device if you discover there is some irregularity in the way your device is operating, it is best you can re-set your device, as for mobile phone, go back to factory setting, while for laptop, reinstall the operation system.

These are some ways we can do to detect and avoid Facebook scam.

Conclusion

Hope this can help you to be aware of the scams going on so that you will be more alert.

If you have been scammed before or aware of any scam, do share your experience in the comments section below.

Facebook is one of the most popular social media.

People like to use Facebook to reach out and get in touch with others.

A lot of people are using Facebook to conduct their businesses and trying to gain as much as traction as possible.

Because of the popularity of Facebook, cybercriminals also use this to prey on their victims.

With so many users of this social media, cybercriminals treat this as their gold mine for them to get their victims.

If the cybercriminals can successfully catch a fraction of the users, it is a golden harvest for them.

What are the common scams in Facebook?

1. Phishing scams.

Phishing scams happen all the times, especially in Email, normally when you receive an email with a link, especially from an unknown sender, the best advice is to delete the email straight away.

The worst that can happen is you go and open the email and click on any link in it.

This may also happen in Facebook feed you are browsing, sometimes some fake Facebook account posted a news feed and you click on the link, that is the end.

You have activated the phishing malware embedded in the link.

The purpose of the phishing scam is to extract the information in your laptop or computer.

Now the cybercriminal is more sophisticated, they may engage you to talk in Facebook Messengers.

Once you are in continuous exchange of messages with them on Messenger, they may send you a link, since you have been in messaging with them, you may lower down your guard and decide to click on the link.

End result? whatever important information you have in your laptop/computer, especially your banking details, login details, credit cards details will be accessed by them.

2. Romance Scams

Romance scams are quite rampant in Facebook nowadays.

It becomes worse when Facebook allows user to open fictitious account, sometimes, you may think the profile of an account is a pretty lady.

Do you really think it is a pretty lady?

In fact, it is a man who is out to scam his victim, especially those who are love sick, or have preferences for females.

They think they can prey on the females, without realizing they are actually the target of the cybercriminals.

When the hook up is done, both parties will get into conversation and the "lady" will try to show she has been having a hard time, and need some help to tie over the predicament she is facing.

I have come across the following modus operandi a few times.

you would have some pretty faces who wanted to add you as friends, so you agreed to add them .

next they would message you via messenger and tell you they were seldom on Facebook and asked for your WhatsApp.

so you added them on WhatsApp, and they started chatting with you on that social media.

after chatting for a few days, the game started, during the first few days, the "lady" would tell you how she was dumped by her friend and now she needed to find her own living by working hard.

then telling you what work she was in and having one assignment, needed to get it done the soonest possible.

another day later, telling you that she encountered a problem and needed to purchase something online but not able to do so.

so she needed your help so that she could complete her work.

The moment she mentioned getting her an Apple Gift Card, that was the red flag telling you this was a scam.

another one which I came across was, she was having a meeting about investment.

She already opened an account but due to the work and company policy, she could not manage that account and needed you to help to administer the account.

3. Lottery Winning Scams

If you opened any Facebook page, you could see a lot of Pages about winning on gambling.

there were so many now on Facebook Pages and if you joined, they would send you a link.

The moment you click on the link, that would be the end of your personal data in your laptop.

4. Job Scams

this is a very common scam in Facebook, someone would post a job vacancy and promising so much in such a short time.

Cyber Criminals are cashing in on the current job market.

since there are quite a lot of people who lost their jobs during the height of pandemic, and every one was desperate to try to get a job so that they could put food on the table for the family.

in desperation, people may just respond to the advertisement for the job and provide the personal details to the scammers.

5. Shopping Scams

Facebook has evolved from one simple casual social networking tools into a large e-commerce tools for businesses to tap on the resources to increase their revenue.

Since every one is jumping into this platform to cash in on its popularity.

Cyber criminals also decided to set up bogus accounts representing certain brands, and using that to phish for information of the unsuspecting customers.

The scammers would post some out of this world offer which raised the impulse of people to buy, the too-good-to-be-true offer would blind the conscience of the people, then this would be the end for people.

6. Fake Friends Request Scams

Facebook does not really check on the identity of a person who opened an account with them, to them, the more accounts being opened, the better it would be, especially those business related accounts or PAGES.

They needed accounts holders to open more PAGES and promote the PAGES, the more account holders spend, the better for them.

Even though the accounts may not be a real account.

most of the time, we could detect that a lot of have pretty ladies as the profiles pictures and most of the times, the faces were the same.

When you accepted the friends request, you would want to look at what they posted.

a lot of them in their posts, you would see a lot of links or websites, and if you click on that, and your antivirus is good enough, it would flag the alert of the potential risks involved.

Conclusion

in my next post, I will be talking about the followings:

1. How to avoid Facebook Scam.

2. What you can do to be more alert.

3. What you can do if you are a victim of the scam.

For the time being, do give me your feedback and share your experience in the comments section below.

waiting for its prey
photo from 4vultures.org

Crypto Scams – How to Avoid and Detect The Scam

Cryptocurrency is very common nowadays and everyone especially the young one is very keen to invest this instrument.

What Is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is a virtual digital currency, no physical mean is transacted, it only works in virtual world.

If you send cryptocurrency to someone else, it is done through online transactions and it is not reversible.

Why do people nowadays like to use cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency transaction is online and fast. It does not work like banking transaction whereby the bank charge a transaction fee and need to verify your authenticity of the fund and purpose of the transactions.

Crypto transaction offers anonymity and the value of cryptocurrency varies and moves very fast, hence it is a very attractive item for investment.

A lot of people like to enter cryptocurrency as investment as they think it is another get rich fast investment with lucrative return within a short time.

As more and more people are jumping into the bandwagon of cryptocurrency, without really understand how it works, they are only after the high return cryptocurrency can give to them, and thinking this is the investment to go to.

What does this tell us with this hot potato?

Every time when there is some lucrative instrument which can help people to make money fast, the vulture will sure lurk around to prey on its victim.

The vulture is the scammers here, they will find ways and means to lure unsuspecting victims to invest in the scheme they design.

waiting for its prey
photo from 4vultures.org

Then the main question is – how do you know it is a cryptocurrency scam?

Scammers always look for new ways go for investors’ money, they can come up with so many methods and tricks to draw the investors to give up their money.

What are the signals you can detect in spotting the scams?

  1. If someone offer you some good investment opportunities and business deals.
  2. They even offer you to double your investment return and
  3. Achieving financial freedom you are looking for.
  4. That you can get you investment in double quick time.
  5. Telling you that you can pay in cryptocurrency if you can recruit others into their scheme.
  6. Offering you help that they can help you to grow your money.
  7. Asking you to login into certain trading platform.
  8. Once you have done that, you realize you are not able to withdraw your money without paying a fee.
  9. There are scammers who will post some scam jobs on job websites and they promise you a job if you pay a fee.
  10. Some scammers even have videos made saying how lucrative is the scheme they have.
  11. They even have celebrity to endorse their success and testimonials to show the track records.
  12. A lot of people do not realize all the videos and testimonials are fake.

What are the common scams in cryptocurrency?

  1. Phishing scams.
  2. ICO scams
  3. Malware scams
  4. Crypto mining scams
  5. Fake crypto exchanges scams

If you want to learn more about the common scams in cryptocurrency, you may want to read up this in https://mainstreetcrypto.com/articles/common-crypto-scams/. In here, it is more in-depth and informative.

What can you do if you think you have been scammed?

If you think you have been scammed, try to do the following as soon as possible.

  1. Make a police report
  2. Gather all the evidences.
  3. Document all the evidence in chronological orders.

You can also report to the following organizations:

for those who want to know which organizations are on the blacklists, you may want to check out the following:

https://authentic-review.com/2022/01/29/crypto-scam-list-2022-update/

https://tradersofcrypto.com/guides/crypto-scams/

Stay vigilant whenever you want to deal with cryptocurrency.

Some pointers for you to avoid falling into the scams

  1. Always check the addresses and domains of the site you are surfing.
  2. Never share your private information with any one else.
  3. Be wary of easy money and fast returns on investment.
  4. High risk high return, so do you believe it is good?
  5. If you are in cryptocurrency, use a cold wallet.
  6. Always use a new account to test out something new.
  7. Leave as little in the wallets.
  8. Use a 2FA verification method to login to your account.
  9. Always check the rating of a platform.
  10. Carry out due diligence before you embark on your cryptocurrency trading.

Conclusion

Do you still want to invest in cryptocurrency?

Despite all these reports about scams involving cryptocurrency, still we have a lot of people diving into this, this is typical human greed.

A greed to have more money in the shortest time possible and at all cost.

Some people have the mindset that this will not happen to them, and maybe they need to pay some school fees to learn a hard lesson.

At the end of the day, unless and until the government start regulating the cryptocurrency transactions, and unless you have done enough researches and learn more about the mechanism of cryptocurrency transaction.

Final Advice

The simple advice is to stay out of it.

4


With the recent rampant scam in the banking industries, especially towards the end of last year 2021, more people are alert to the scamming going on.

However, despite all this news about the scams in the banking industries, there are still a lot of bank customers fell into the trap of the scammers.

News report stated among those who fell victims to the scammers are professional and females.

One would have thought only elderly who are less savvy with information technology will fall prey to the scams.

the number showed otherwise, even as reported, IT engineer also one of the many victims.

The other group is the females, be it the professional, housewife or some who are emotionally disturbed. Scammers will look for those vulnerable.

What can we do to safeguard ourselves ?

to safeguard ourselves from falling victims to the scammers, and lose our lifelong savings, it is about time more people are to aware of this and take necessary steps to keep ourselves happy.

the age-old saying - do not talk to strangers, still hold true in this virtual world of advance technology.

most people seem to have forgotten this adage when come to online world, especially the young ones who like to communicate through virtual world.

We can at least do the following to safeguard ourselves.

1. Carry out due diligence on the other parties.

how many people online check on the background of the other parties they are dealing with?

when a person comes across some offers online, tendency is for the person to click on it and see the offer and like it, will purchase, without checking whether it is real or not.

Before you come to conclusion whether to deal with the person, do the following:

a. we should at least check the legitimacy of the website.

b. Read comments and review about the company,

c. Search online to see whether there is any about the person or company.

d. check whether the person whom you are supposed to deal with have any other social media accounts.

e. If the does, what did the posts and share in his account,

f. Carry out a check on anti scam website and see whether the name is listed in it or not.

2. Insist on a physical meeting.

One of the best way is to have a physical meeting, if the person on the other side refused to do so, then we can more or less about dealing with him.

well, the may say under the current circumstance, it is quite difficult to travel and meet up, then we can suggest a video call since the technology enable this virtual meeting a possibility.

3. Do not commit any decision instantly.

people tend to make instant decision nowadays, and scammers are taking full advantage of this.

nowadays people are impatient, especially when dealing with transactions online, they want it fast, so fast that until they do not bother to check clearly and carefully what they are clicking on.

4. Check for telltale sign that it is a fake website.

a lot of people when they receive a message, email or notices, they do not bother to check carefully to look for telltale sign of fake messages.

most people will just look at the headline and the sender name, and believe it is from the legitimate sender.

In Singapore, there are a lot of senders who like to use the following corporation or website names to send malware and phishing link.

1. DBS.

2. DHL.

3. LinkedIn.

5. Microsoft.com

6. MOH

7. POSB

these are just some example, if you check the domain names of the websites, it is not the original organization domain name, the email domain also look very different.

Are the measures announced by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) effective?

MAS has since the phishing SMSes scam in December 2021, announced a few measures to further improve and strengthen the internet banking industry security.

1. Removing of clickable links in SMSes sent to customers.

last time banks used to send SMSes to customers with clickable links, this as explained by banks, it is to enable the customers to click on the link and get access to the website faster.

Scammers took advantage of this, especially when the banks used the shorten form of domain link, so it is quite difficult to check on the real domain name of the banks.

2. Delay the changes and updating of information of customers.

to make life easy for customers, banks used to say customers could now update their information online without making a trip to the branch.

with this scammer, after phishing the login particulars of the customers, happily do the changes and take control of the operation of the accounts of the customers.


now MAS want any changes and updating of personal particular such as phone number, login password and so on, be processed and be effective only after 12 hours.

you can read more about that in the following two links:

a. Singapore Government Media Statement.

b. Monetary Authority of Singapore announcement

4


Banks are pushing their customers to use online banking.

They claimed to encourage the customers to use online banking as much as possible.

Why do banks insist on customers using online internet banking?

Banks claimed with the advancement of technology, and more and more people are internet savvy, it is about time online internet banking be the focus and future of banking.

Even government is encouraging all business entities to go online and do things online, so the banks are taking the cue to do so.

The banks claim by doing business online, they can reap the following benefits:

1. Cost savings.

The banks claim it is the most cost savings invention for the banking industry.

With online banking, the banks require less physical branches, which mean hiring less bank staffs to man the branches.

So there will be huge saving on staffs cost, rental of branches, utility, and other cost incidental to operating a branch

2. More efficient

With internet banking, the operation of the bank is more efficient, as more transactions can be done at anyone time, no like physical banking, a teller can only serve a customer at one time and it may take longer to complete the transactions,

3. Saving the hazard of long queue in the branches of the banks.

With physical branches, sometimes there are long queue as people wait to be served by the counters, especially when one customer has a lot of transactions, or need to seek more clarification, it will take up longer time.

Also, queue theory applies and management has to decide whether single line or lining up at each counter.

With the pandemic ravaging, physical present may not be a good idea.

4. Paperless, save the environment.

Online banking tend to use fewer papers, as customers do their banking requirement online and documents are saved in soft copy file and file away in their respective devices.

Less paper work supposedly will use fewer papers and to certain extent, less cutting of trees. And no need to send out monthly paper statements.

5. Easier for the customers to check their bank balances and banking need.

Customers can check their bank status any time with internet online banking, they are not able to do so if it is a physical banks, as there will be subject to banking hours.

If the customers want to do any banking transactions, they can do so even at mid night if the needs arise.

However, this is something which he can not do with physical banking system, and he has to wait for the next day.

6. no need for the customer to make a trip to the bank as it can be done online.

Making a trip to the bank is a headache, when you consider the traffic and the need to look for parking space.

Somehow, where there is a bank branch, the parking slots are not readily available.

Making trip to bank is always a hazard, and inconvenient for some people, especially when you think of the need to queue up for your turn to see the teller.

7. More convenient for the customers!!

Frankly speaking, online banking is quite convenient if you are tech savvy and can not live without accessing to internet.

You can do it at home in your cosy home environment, it looks very good and efficient.

8. Banking transactions can be done anytime, even at night, no need to rush to bank in day time.

With internet banking, if you need to do an urgent banking transaction at night, you can do so easily, no need to wait until the next day for the bank to open.

Likewise, you can do it globally wherever you are, even you are not in the home country, you can still carry out the necessary transactions.

Despite all these so called benefits and advantages of having online internet banking, what are the cons of it?

1. Lack of human approach.

This is the main complaint about online banking, no more human touch.

Lacking of human interaction, mean you do not have a banking relationship manager to deal with, and you can not build up a good rapport with the bank officers at all.

2. Can not do cash deposit of money.

If you have hard cash to be deposited, you can not do so with internet banking, still you need to go to the nearest ATM or the bank branch to do so.

3. Safety of the internet.

Is it safe to use online banking? safety and security of it is questionable, as it involved two parts.

One is whether your device, be it your mobile phone, is safe, the other issue is whether the bank online system is safe and secure.

Nowadays no one dares to say their computer systems are safe and 100% secured.

The moment one company claims its computer system and network is safe, the hackers will treat it as a challenge to hack the system.

Some hackers like to do it just to satisfy their urge to hack and prove how good they are in breaking into a system.

Of course there are some who hack in order to scam other people's money.

4. Not every one is tech savvy especially the elderly.

Older generations are having problem to understand how to use the mobile phone for its simple function like sending messages and making phone calls.

with the smart phones nowadays, majority of the phone are touch screen based, not like last time button, more difficult for senior citizens to use.

And you expect the older generations to know how to do banking transaction online?

They do not even know how to surf the net for information.

Some may be able to learn, but do they know what they can click and what they can not click?

Do they know whether the site they enter is genuine or fictitious site?

After listing the pros and cons of internet banking above

Let's discuss the topic - Are the banks doing the right things to push for digital banking?

With the recent cases of scams involving one of the banks in Singapore.

In which about 470 customers lost more than SGD $ 9 million in the month of December alone.

Now people have second thought whether the banks are doing the right things to push for digital banking,  and totally discard physical banking transactions.

It was reported that the scams happened when the customers of the bank received SMSes.

Purportedly from the bank informing customers of illegal transactions, customers need to verify by clicking the links provided in the same SMSes.

Once the customer clicked on the link, that is the end of their money in the bank.

Without knowing the links which are fraudulent and linked to a fake banking website, the unsuspecting customers click on the link.

The scammers easily secure the requirement login particulars of the customers, and they will then go to the real bank website to carry out the necessary transactions such as:

  • changing the login password.
  • amend the withdrawing limit per transaction.
  • change the requirement of one time password via SMS,
  • direct the notification to their own phones or devices.

So is it the right move?

What have the banks done in order to make internet banking a smooth and trouble free procedure and system?

1. Hot line number

Has anyone tried to call the bank on its hot line and get to speak with a human straight away?

One bank in Singapore use some so called latest technology, the same as the one used in APPLE phone on the siri robots.

And it was so frustrating especially when you can not even get pass this stage,  as the machine does not seem to understand what you said.

I encountered another occasion when you call the bank, it starts with - for English, please press 1, so you do.

Then it starts giving you all the options but not in numerical orders.

So after you press the number, before it gives you more option, it starts selling you and encouraging you to use their app and telling you how efficient is their app.

After listening to the advantages of using the app, then it tells you the option.

You then press the option, once again, you have to listen to how great is their app and so on.

After that it says all our operators are engaged at the moment, you can call back some other time or go to our website and perform the transaction you want to do!!!!.

So when you feel that you have been scammed and you want to contact the bank immediately, facing with the machine talking all the times and not able to speak with a human, how to contact the bank?

as reported in the news, in the recent cases, the bank advised its customers to contact the bank immediately.

I wonder they know how hard it is to talk to the human in the bank by calling the hot line they have.

2. Token

At one time, Banks wanted to do away with the physical tokens and pushing customers to use the app.

With the recent cases in December 2021, banks have decided to allow the customers to continue using the token.

3. OTP or One Time Password.

The bank at one time wanted to do away with this One Time Password, and pushing bank customers to use the app for the access to the banking requirement. However, with the recent frequent cases of scams, they have decided to stick to this OTP for the time being.

However, does this solve the scam problem?

Customers now are not that confident to receive any SMSes from the banks, as they are not sure the messages they received are genuine or not.

What have the banks advised the customers?

1. Do not click on any links in the short messages .

Banks claimed the short messages they sent do not have any links attached at all.

So in other words, if you receive any short messages from the banks with link attached, it is a fake message, though it may look like the messages are from the banks.

2. Do not give any information about your details on banking to anyone.

This instruction is rather difficult to comprehend, when you login to the bank website, do you provide the information? as you are being prompted to do so.

Are you sure the website you access is the real website of the bank?

how do you differentiate the real and the fake website?

Perhaps you may want to use the tools available to check on any fake website or do some checks in the internet.

The best way to do so is to key in the URL of the bank directly, instead of just click on the link provided.

3. Call the bank hot lines to verify.

As I mentioned earlier, some hot lines provided by the banks are not that easily accessible.

Unless you have the patient and in good mood to listen to all the sales pitches or talking to robot, it is better you just make a trip to the bank and talk to the human directly.

Even that again may not be possible as the staff may direct you to go online, it seems that is about the job function of the staffs of the banks nowadays, to tell customers to go online to do banking transactions.

Now what can the banks and authority do? or should do?

1. Bank domain.

It is about time all the governments in the world work together to regulate the registration of domain names in world of internet.

Currently, you can register a domain quite similar to the one you want to scam.

For example, ABC Bank.com once you register as the bank domain, another person can register one almost similar to it such as ABC. Bank.com

for those who are not cautious and alert, they will think it is the same.

The relevant parties may have to agree in order to stop this type of scam.

Those people who are trying to do some fraudulent thing with ill intention, will definitely make use of this.

Therefore, it is important that certain domain can not have similar name at all, regardless of you put in a coma, a hyphen, or whatever.

2. Tracing of the transactions.

There should be electronic trails of the transactions, the money trails from the bank where the victim's money was transferred from, to the bank where the money was transferred.

If the money was then further moved to another bank account, and so on, sometimes, it could be moving to multiples destinations so as to avoid detection.

Or making it difficult for authorities to trace the eventual destination of the fund, especially when the scammers move the funds all over the world.

And unless the investigators are very patient to follow the money trails, the recovery of the fund is almost equal to zero.

The recovery of the fund is more difficult when it is going through some offshore heaven, or countries which have very lax monitoring and anti money laundering enforcement.

3. Real Hotline

it is about time the government through its central bank ensure all the banks really have some human manning the hot line instead of trying to automate the phone answering system and saving cost.

The response time of answering the phone and the frustration of the customers calling the banks at time of emergency, will determine whether the scammed money can be recovered or not.

4. Timing of transfer

Anyone noticed whenever your transfer money to your account, the bank will tell you it will take a day or two to clear?

Meaning, you can not use the money immediately.

However, when you transfer the money out of your account, it seems to deduct from your account immediately!!.

Therefore, actually the recent cases of the phishing scams can be easily thwarted if the bank has the system in place.

Such as when money is transferred out of the bank, it will take one day or two or wait for the account owner to confirm whether he did the transfer.

The bank can ask the customer to go down to the bank to verify since nowadays, we can not trust the phone on the other end of the line is really from the bank or not.

In Summary

In the meantime, those who want to learn more how to know more about phishing SMS, you may want to go HERE to learn more about it.

You may also want to do more research on this.

Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks have just announced some measures to curb the SMS phishing scams.

You can read more about that HERE

 

 

Online shopping

This is the in thing in town nowadays to do shopping online.

Online shopping is actually a good thing to have, especially in this COVID-19 pandemic time.

In a way, this helps to keep the cases of infection down and to certain extent, keep the human traffic in the shopping malls and reduced congestion on the road too.

As usual, any good invention or things will always have the bad influence or effect too.

Scammers have been using the online shopping platform to scam on unsuspecting people.

They will make use of the human mind of tenancy to assume the link is alright.

By the time the unsuspecting victim realized they have been scammed, it may be too late as there is monetary loss .

The common online shopping platform mushroom practically overnight.

Over here in Singapore, we have things like Lazada, Shoppe, Amazon Prime, NTUC Fairprice, RedMart, just to name a few more famous and popular one, .

How do the scammers use the shopping platform to scam unsuspecting victims?

1. SMS messages asking you to pay more.

Normally a legit shopping platform will not ask you to pay more after you have made payment on the item you have selected.

According to reported news recently, scammers had used a tactic to message shoppers and telling them that they needed to pay more for the items they have purchased.

a lot of shoppers especially those who frequently use online shopping, once received the message, will not bother to check the authenticity of the message.

They just click on the link provided in the message and make the additional payment as required.

scammers fully make use of the human tendency not to check in details to implant a phishing malware into the device of the victims the moment the victims click on the link provided.

Human being tends to assume the message is genuine and the link is the real website link.

However if they just pay more attention and be more alert, they will notice the link provide is not the official website of the shopping platform.

2. Sending emails to the victims and asking them to make any additional payment.

this type of scam is quite common, the reason being recipient of email do not bother to check the email domain of the sender at all.

they always assume the email is from the real shopping platform they often use without knowing the email domain is different,  even though the title of the sender is the same name as the shopping platform.

If they really care to be more alert and check the email domain, they will find out it is not the official email domain at all, and if they have clicked on the link provided in the email, the phishing malware will be activated.

 

What can a person do to avoid this type of scam?

1. Check the link provided before you click on the link.

Check whether the link is the real link, then compare it with the platform domain.

2. Call the platform

if in doubt, call the platform and verify whether they have sent you any message.

3. Check whether you have made any purchase recently using that shopping platform.

a lot of people tend not do the check as they have bought online too often and they fail to keep track of their purchases, and it does not cross their mind that they do not make any purchase recently.

4. Just delete the messages you received without opening.

people may worry what if the message is true, well, if the message is true, the platform will get in touch with you again, or call you to inform you to top up the shortfall when the goods is delivered.

if there is no reminder sent, then you can be sure it is a hoax and a scam.

 

Do You Think You Have Been Scammed?

if you think you have been scammed, you can do the following:

1. Check whether you have made any purchase recently, if it is negative, then you do not have to worry.

2. Try to make payment using credit card instead of using your debit card or online banking.

It is important to set your credit card charge alert to one cent, meaning even there is a charge for one cent, there will be a message alert to inform you that your card is being charged.

if you have not made any payment, call the credit card issuing bank to stop the payment.

Normally, the bank which charge your credit card will not remit the money to the merchant immediately, so the moment you receive the message of the charges, call them immediately.

3. Report the scam immediately to the relevant authority, this can help the relevant authority to gather more information and take necessary action.

4. Spread the words among your friends about the scam.

5. Share it in your social media so that more people will know about the scam.

6. You can share your experience with https://www.scamalert.sg/

7. Internationally you may want to report to HERE

Conclusion

just be more alert and check any link sent to you, especially the domain of the link.

Whatever you do, do not click on the link at all.

If you have any feedback and comments, do drop a few lines in the comments section below.

Share your experience and let's make online shopping a better place.

 

Work From Home

This is a common term used in the last two years or so, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was a preferred working mode to avoid infected with the virus.

When you search for a job opportunity in this time of the year, you will tend to find one preferably can work from home.

Because of this, scammers also know how to cash in on this and try to scam the innocent and genuine job seekers.

During COVID-19 when so many have lost their jobs and trying to find employment, some will become desperate and will grab any job opportunity comes along.

Hence , how do you know the job opportunity is genuine and real job instead of fake job?

Scammers pose as companies, recruitment agents offering you fake jobs claiming you can work from home in this trying time.

How do people usually look for job opprotunities?

  1. using online job portals.
  2. using job postings on human resources recruitment websites.
  3. advertisements of job vacancies in printed media or social medias.
  4. WhatsApp messages of jobs opportunities.

How do you detect the scams in the work from home postings of jobs?

there are some signs and indications if you can see the postings or advertisement of jobs carefully, you can detect the scams or fake jobs.

If you can notice the following clues, you may be able to detect the scams in the job advertisement

  1. The job is too good to be true.
  2. There is little information on the company.
  3. Contact number in the post cannot confirm the legitimacy of the job offer.
  4. There are bad review online about the company.
  5. The employer is too eager to hire.
  6. You have to pay to work.
  7. The employer want to conduct interview only using WhatsApp messaging.
  1. The job is too good to be true.

If the job offer states that you can do it from home and they pay a very good remuneration even though you may not have the necessary qualification or experience for the job.

Job description indicated that the job is very easy but have good pay, you should use your own instinct to determine whether this is a scam or not.

2. There is little information on the company.

Sometimes the company may put its website domain in the job posting and when you check the website, it does not seem like a genuine website of the company.

Some scammers have the effort to display a website of the original company and thinking the job applicants will not detect the different from the genuine company website.

If you apply through the link given , you may fall to the scam of the scammers who may use the phishing malware to infect your device the moment you click on the link.

3. Contact number in the post cannot confirm the legitimacy of the job offer

Some of the job advertisements have the contact numbers, however when you try to contact, either by phone or email, you fail to get the necessary reply.

When you check the website, you will notice the contact is not correct and you are not able to reach the right person or the recruiting person.

4. There are bad review online about the company.

if you are able to read the review online about the company, you may find the reviews of the company are not encouraging, a lot of bad reviews, some people who have been cheated may just state as such in their reviews and warn future applicants to be careful of it.

5. The employer is too eager to hire.

If you apply for the job and within minutes you receive the phone from the company and the person on the other end of the line is so eager to talk to you, this may sound an alarm in your head.

Normally when you apply for a job, especially online application, you may only get a reply after a few days instead of within a day or two.

if the caller said he or she wanted to talk you to find out more about you and so on, this may give you an indication that the job offer is not real.

6. You have to pay to work.

sometimes, you may come across some jobs, once they decide to hire you, however they insist on you making some payment to process some documentation, especially if the job posting is oversea.

The potential employer may want you to remit some money for the processing of the work documentation and relevant papers, this is to ensure you have a valid documents to work in foreign country.

Should not this at the cost of the employer? you may ask, if they insisted that you need to pay and they will reimbursed you later, or once you come on board,

The advice is you should not proceed with this any longer.

7. The employer want to conduct interview only using WhatsApp messaging.

I have come across potential employers insisting on conducting interviews using WhatsApp messaging.

And when i asked why didn't we use WhatsApp video calling for the interview, the recruiters said her device did not have the said function!!!.

You will find the interview can drag on for days and conversations were on and off.

The recruiter who claimed to be the Director in charge of Human Resource would only reply to messages on and off.

she would claim she was busy doing some other things while conducting the messaging interviews.

The interview will go from official and move to some personal matters and she may claim to share your interest and slowly will try to get you to invest in what she is investing.

Normally it is a cryptocurrency trading and the platform she gives you is not that professionally set up at all.

you may read more about that in HERE.

Conclusion

By being careful, you can protect your identity, your finances and your wellbeing.

When a prospective employer is asking you to fill up an online application form, it requires some personal data such as:

  • your bank account number,
  • your date of birth and
  • those of your family members,
  • chances are this is a scam and if you click on the link, you may subject to phishing attack.

Do not give out any personal information other than the basic such as the phone number.

Some scammers are using the legitimate job portals to post fake job openings, if you are selected, do some due diligence on the company.

With the availability of the internet nowadays and the amount of information easily accessible, it is quite easy to do some background check on the companies.

One of the alert signal will be the email domain from the so called HR or hiring personnel, it is very unlikely that the company does not have its own email domain.

It is no harm to be extra careful and pass on the job opportunity if you are not sure, rather than be sorry later after you find you have been scammed.

Brief Explanation

What is telephone scam?

Many people lost their money via telephone scams, some of them even lost their life savings to the scammers.

Scammers prey on the greed and ignorance of the victims, and without knowing the true facts , sometimes out of fear, they decide to remit money to the scammers as ordered.

Scammers will threaten the victim and their main objective is to get your personal particulars and money.

They will try to commit identify theft and get hold of your particulars.

What are the common phone scams?

Phone scams are getting more rampant and frequent.

In this COVID-19 pandemic challenging time, phone scams are even more frequent, most people will use phone to procure their daily needs and so on.

Phone scammer will jump at the opportunity to scam innocent victims.

Common methods used by scammers are:

  1. impersonating they are calling from police station.

Scammers called and claimed they were calling from police headquarter and there was an unsettled summon need to be settled.

and they would ask for particulars and remit money to clear the summon.

2. Callers claimed they were calling from Ministry of Health

With the pandemic going on, scammers impersonating as official from Ministry of Health and asking victim to confirm particulars for the vaccination.

3. Calling from reputed banks

Callers claimed they were calling from a reputed bank and something was wrong with your accounts and they need to verify the particulars.

4. Loan and financing scam

Scammers called and offered some low interest financing and with attractive repayment package, the catch is they required particulars.

What should you do when you received such calls?

  1. Hang up the phone

Normally when some one called from unknown number it would be better just hang up the phone, no need to waste time to entertain the callers.

for example, if you are in Singapore and the caller ID showed +65, you would know it was a scammer call, as local call would not show the country code.

2. Talk nonsense with the callers

every time when i received a call from "MOH" I would ask him who was the Minister of the country, and if the call was from "Police HQ", i would ask who was the Commissioner of Police!!!

every time when the called heard my question, they would cut of the phone calls.

3. Block the numbers.

Scammers may use internet app to make the call, and you need to know your mobile system well and block the calls.

4. Spoofing

sometime called might use the latest technology to disguise the caller ID, so it all depended on the recipient to make his judgement and decided whether the calls were a scam.

however, you may want to check the caller ID at HERE

DON"T DO THE FOLLOWINGS:

  1. When some one asked you to remit money via Western Union or MoneyGram, do not do it.
  2. Callers asked you to give your personal particulars, do not do so.
  3. Do not give remote access to your computer to people.
  4. Make sure you have your password and user ID with you and NOT give it to another person.

Finally report the scam to the REAL POLICE.

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