The Singapore Police Force (SPF) warned of a ‘fake friend’ scam that had tricked around 4,800 people.
Their losses totalled over S$15.7 million since January this year.
Scammers would contact victims through unknown numbers pretending to be their friends. They would later request financial aid.
The SPF advised the public to perform verification measures or risk losing their money.
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), the SPF released a statement addressing the fake friend scams on Wednesday (30 Aug).
Around 4,800 people have lost a total of $15.7 million since Jan 2023.
Source: SPF via 8world News.
The scammers contacted their victims through unknown numbers, which may or may not have the +65 prefix.
The scammer would then tell the victim that they were a friend and ask them to guess their real identity.
If the victim fell for their trap and named one of their friends, the scammers would impersonate them.
They would subsequently ask the victim to update the contact details of their actual friend to the imposter’s number.
MS News had reported about one such scam back in Jan 2023.
After this, the scammers would contact the victims claiming financial difficulties and an inability to perform banking transactions.
They would then plead for a loan to be transferred to a local bank account provided to the victim, which they promised to pay back.
Source: SPF via 8world News.
After the completed transaction, however, the scammers would vanish with the stolen amounts.
Victims only realised they had been scammed after contacting the actual impersonated friend or when the loans were not returned.
The police advised the public to adopt several precautionary measures against the fake friend scam:
“If you have any information relating to such crimes or if you are in doubt, please call the Police Hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit it online,” the police urged.
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Featured image adapted from Adem AY on Unsplash for illustration purposes only.
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