SINGAPORE: A foreign student who has only been in Singapore for three months crowdsourced for help online, asking whether he can secure the money a scammer tried to take from him.
He wrote in a post on r/askSingapore post from earlier this week that he got a call on WhatsApp from a man claiming to be a police officer, and even showed him a badge and uniform over a video call.
The “police” asked if the man was using a debit card for his DBS account, and gave the first eight correct numbers on it. He also told the student he needed to verify that the card was his by showing it to him over video.
Because the man is new to Singapore and had heard that security measures are robust here, he did so, despite sensing that he could be speaking to a scammer.
However, the “police” proceeded to ask him to approve a transaction for S$20, and when they ended the call, the post author began to fear he had been scammed.
He then disabled the online transaction function of the card, later finding out that the scammer had attempted to steal S$200 from him three times.
When he called the bank’s hotline, he found out that S$200 had been transferred from his account. DBS also asked him to file a police report and forward it to them.
The post author also wrote that he saw a transfer for S$200 that was still pending and added that he was uncertain whether this amount could still be secured, which is what he asked fellow Reddit users.
One Reddit user explained that the first eight digits in a card are identifiers, which means people who have the same card will have the same initial numbers.
However, while commenters on his post were sympathetic, they did not raise any false hopes.
Some told him that the police in Singapore would never contact people via WhatsApp messages or calls. They added that for serious matters, the police will always ask people to come down to the station in person.
Another tried to comfort the student, telling him it was “better to learn your lesson at the expense of $200 than $2000.” After all, some have even lost their life savings to scammers, a Reddit user added.
Others warned the student not to click on links to make payments, especially for official transactions such as those for government services.
One commenter explained, however, that a pending transaction has not been fully processed, and once the student forwards the police report he filed, the DBS representative is likely to cancel the transaction completely,
They added, “Please don’t blame yourself. Just be careful next time. Always be on guard whenever someone asks you about money, bank, or ID.” /TISG
Read also: Scammer topped up foreign student’s prepaid SIM card in order to continue scamming her