People lost $1.4 million after getting fake calls from Shopee about charges related to insurance policy
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the police are alerting the public to scammers impersonating staff from Shopee, UnionPay and MAS.
The police have received 12 reports of such cases with total losses amounting to at least $1.4 million this year.
Scam victims would receive unsolicited calls from a scammer impersonating Shopee staff, informing them that there were recurring fees that would be charged to them in relation to an insurance policy that they had previously signed up for on the Shopee platform.
They were redirected to a second scammer purporting to be a UnionPay service representative, who would request personal information from the victims, such as bank account details and personal credentials, to verify their policy details.
The victims were informed that, unless they cancel the policy, the recurring fees would automatically be deducted from their bank accounts linked to the Shopee platform.
To effect the "policy cancellation", the second scammer would guide the victims to perform bank transfers to a specified bank account for "safe-keeping" through WhatsApp's screen-sharing function.
Throughout the process, they were given the assurance that their money would be refunded upon successful cancellation of their policies.
In some cases, the scam victims were redirected to a second scammer purporting to be an MAS officer, who would inform victims that their bank accounts had been implicated in money laundering activities and they would have to transfer monies to a specified bank account for the purpose of assisting in investigations.
The scammer would send screenshots of court orders purportedly from MAS through WhatsApp to convince the victims to transfer them the money.
The victims would realise that they had been scammed only when the scammers became uncontactable, or when they did not receive the promised refunds.
Shopee and UnionPay said they will never request personal information or payments through unsolicited phone calls, emails, WhatsApp messages or SMS.
Any such requests should be treated as fraudulent.
