Due to COVID, the global economy is slowing down, meanwhile the scamming activity has been frenzy. I had ever received 5-10 calls a day. 

The few places I use my phone number are bank/medical/education and SOCIAL MEDIAS. I believe most of them are fine except social media.

It is quite sad to hear that Facebook and many others was hacked and stolen databases are leak.

533 million Facebook users’ phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online  

All these info containing our personal data has been used by the scammers to work against us. Few days before, I received a call regarding my website and they are able to give certain in-depth info about me. 

On the other time, they call me and pertaining to be the bank staff. The scariest thing is they could give me my personal info. They wanted me pay a sum of money to unfreeze my bank account etc., everything sounds so real. Sometimes, they pretending to be the policeman investigating some cases which related to recent news. 

It is quite fortunate that, Singapore is a such small country with only 5 million populations, regardless of races we all share a specific ascents, the guy on the other side of the call is obviously non-local. That alarms me the moment I answer the call (especially on banking issues etc.). On the other hand, thanks to the Tel company which has added “+65” prefix on phones that is an oversea spoof call. I only know that recently, (because I has been receiving so many scamming calls then I search online about it) since then I’m now rejecting all “local” calls with the prefix. 

Wish this do help you too, it is kina sad when reading the news about so many “Aunties/Uncles” gets scam, and losses their savings. 

Some News Reference:

More than S$201 million cheated in top 10 scam types last year: Police

Between 1 January and 31 March 2020 , at least S$41.3 million dollars were lost to scam mers, based on cases that were reported to the Police. This is about S$9 million (or 27.9%) more compared with the same period last year. The majority of such cases were masterminded by overseas scammers.

$9.3 million lost in 534 cases of scams in Singapore

S’pore police warns of scammers pretending to be Interpol & High Court officers to get money

Police probe 534 scam cases leading to over $9.3m loss

Peace Out,

Mr D.