Facebook user Clarence Tan posted on Tuesday, 22 May, about a fake Singtel telephone bill that was mailed to him.
The bill was delivered enclosed within a generic Singtel envelope. When Tan called in to Singtel, they said, “that they had been receiving countless calls about this and was told that it was a phishing mail and had been ongoing for quite some time”.
While Singtel staff told Clarence that there was no such account number as printed on the letter, another supposed member of Singtel’s staff approached him claiming that the bill ID was indeed valid. That led to speculation of a possible data leak with Singtel.
Clarence Tan said in his post, “Update: When i called Singtel, I did asked them to check the account number and they told me that there was no such account number and was told to ignore it. But then, a Singtel staff(not entirely sure legit or not) approached me and told me that he had checked the bill ID and it was valid(weird huh? Data leak?)”.
He added, “Some of you might think that since there is no “-” before the amount, Singtel might me owing me $8.35 instead(I wish). Which is one of the reason why i called them to enquire in the first place(Free money right? Who don’t want?)”.
Clarence Tan’s lengthy Facebook post opened up a possibility of an attempted scam using Singtel telephone bills as a front.
There were also other netizens who apparently received similar letters that were also allegedly fake.
However, some netizens said otherwise, explaining that Singtel’s staff were unsure that a balance amount was in face owed to Clarence, as indicated by the ‘-‘ before the amount.
A third group of netizens said that the scam was not involving money directly at all, but was most likely a way to acquire bank details of victims.
So, which is it?
Singtel has not shed any light on these incidents.
obbana@theindependent.sg