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:
- 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?
- 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:
- When some one asked you to remit money via Western Union or MoneyGram, do not do it.
- Callers asked you to give your personal particulars, do not do so.
- Do not give remote access to your computer to people.
- 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.
