SINGAPORE — A member of the public has published an open letter of complaint to DBS Bank after losing over S$2,000 from his bank account to fraudulent transactions. The account holder was scheduled to receive a new DBS debit card within seven days; however, when the given period came, it went with no updates.
“My bank account was hijacked, and there was an unauthorized transaction carried out to Korean Style Clothes Ba Ng,” the account holder wrote on the Facebook group Complaint Singapore on Saturday (Dec 31). “On Dec 8, 2022, I was defrauded of S$2,263.72. I contacted DBS Bank to let them know and was told by ‘Herfie’ that DBS would be looking into it and would be returning my money as well as deactivating my debit card,” he noted. When the said date came, and the money didn’t arrive, the bank client called Herfie, who “continued to give empty promises” that the money would be returned within another week.
When he initially called Herfie, he discovered that the report submission didn’t even go through, so another case ticket was raised. “He promised that I will be getting my money back before Dec 22.”
After another call on Dec 30, the account holder was advised to file a police report about the transaction on his DBS debit card. “They informed me that I was in charge of my own debit card and that they had closed the issue.”
The account holder filed a police report on the same day but was told by the officers that “since this is an unauthorized transaction, they will not be able to open an investigation on the case.”
“There are undoubtedly thousands of instances of online scamming and bank hacking; therefore, I’m confident that this is not the first issue that DBS Bank has dealt with. It is such a disgrace that such a big bank in Singapore is unable to protect the bank accounts of their users from such scams,” wrote the concerned individual.
“S$2000 is a significant quantity of money; for some people, it might even provide their entire family’s food on the table for several months. Imagine all of that money disappearing in a matter of seconds due to the bank’s inability to shield its customers from such internet fraudsters. This is simply unacceptable. This situation is even more outrageous given the bank has repeatedly broken its promises to me.”
He added that he took great caution when handling his confidential bank information. “In order to prevent this from happening to more Singaporeans, I implore the bank and the Singapore Police Force to take better action rather than only alerting people about scams and how to spot potential con artists.”
Netizens advised the account holder to visit the branch and file a dispute form on top of calling the hotline. Meanwhile, others wondered how a DBS debit card transaction pushed through without a one-time password.
The account holder confirmed that he didn’t receive an OTP or any notifications from the bank regarding the transaction. It appears that others have experienced similar cases of unauthorised transactions.
Facebook user An Warzi advised never to leave debit card details in online shopping apps.
The Independent Singapore has reached out to DBS for a statement and will update the article accordingly. /TISG
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