$407,000 lost since Dec 2024 in OneMotoring phishing scam resurgence in Singapore
Ian Cheng for The Straits Times
The public should be careful if they receive text messages claiming that they have unpaid transport-related bills, the police said on April 14.
This comes with the resurgence of a phishing scam involving a fake OneMotoring website, with at least 37 cases reported since December 2024, and a total of at least $407,000 lost.
OneMotoring is an online portal by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) for digital services such as the renewal of road tax and payment of fines, as well as motoring information and traffic updates.
In such scams, victims would receive text messages purporting to be from OneMotoring informing them about unpaid bills.
The text messages contain an embedded link that sends victims to a phishing payment website that mimics the OneMotoring portal.
Victims would then be prompted to key in their personal information, credit or debit card details and other sensitive information. They often realise that they have been scammed only when they discover unauthorised transactions on their credit or debit cards.
The police said that messages from LTA regarding unpaid road tax bills do not contain payment links to the OneMotoring website or to payment portals.
Notifications on road tax expiry of vehicles by LTA are sent to vehicle owners through three methods:
- SMSes through the "gov.sg" sender identification
- E-letters deposited into the vehicle owner's OneMotoring account, which are accessible only via Singpass login
- Letters sent to the vehicle owner's registered address if they have opted for hard-copy notifications.
In 2024, police scam victims in Singapore lost $1.1 billion, marking a record high amount of losses suffered in a single year.
In total, victims in Singapore have lost more than $3.4 billion to scams since 2019.
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