Singapore and Hong Kong police help victim recover nearly $200k from 'Microsoft hotline' scam

Singapore and Hong Kong police recently helped a 73-year-old victim recover a large sum of money lost to an online scam.

In a press release on Monday (Oct 14), the police said that the elderly woman fell victim to a technical support scam, which led to more than $197,000 illicitly transferred out of her bank account.

While browsing the Internet on her computer, the victim was prompted to contact a "Microsoft hotline" when an unsolicited pop-up appeared.

After making a phone call, she was led to believe that her bank accounts had been compromised and was later transferred to a scammer pretending to be a 'cybercrime department officer' from the Singapore Police Force.

Believing that the scammer would help "detect possible scams on her accounts", the victim was convinced to access her bank accounts through a screen-sharing application.

This gave the scammer access to the victim's accounts, ultimately leading to the unauthorised transfer of funds out of her account into an offshore account.

Once asked to login to her bank accounts, the victim became apprehensive about the legitimacy of the 'cybercrime department officer', promptly ending the call and reporting the incident to the police on Sept 24.

The police's Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) was activated upon receiving the report and managed to quickly track the funds to a Hong Kong-based bank account.

The ASC subsequently worked together with the Hong Kong Police Force’s Anti-Deception Coordination Centre and managed to recover the full amount of money.

Steps to avoid falling for scams

The police also advised members of the public to take precautions to avoid falling for scams.

[[nid:698237]]

This includes downloading the ScamShield app and setting up security features, also using Money Lock to secure a portion of savings.

Members of the public can also check for scam signs with official sources such as the ScamShield helpline (1799) or check the legitimacy of suspicious messages, phone numbers and website links via the ScamShield app or website.

Additionally, they should also tell authorities, family and friends about scams they may come across and report any fraudulent bank transactions immediately.

Should one believe they have fallen victim to a scam, they should uninstall any software that had been downloaded by instruction of the scammers, perform a full anti-virus scan and delete detected malware and switch off their affected device immediately.

They should also report the incident to their banks to stop related activities as well as change e-banking credentials and remove unauthorised payees that may have been added.

They should also report the incident to the police.

ALSO READ: Victims lose over $162k to phishing scams involving social media ads in September

dana.leong@asiaone.com