Over $30,000 lost in new scam in Singapore involving requests for school fees by impersonators
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Since August 2025, at least 16 cases of such scams have been reported.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
Follow topic:
SINGAPORE - At least $38,000 has been lost to a new type of scam involving fake requests for school or tuition fees.
At least 16 cases of such scams were reported in August, and were carried out via e-mails impersonating educational institutions, the police said in a press statement dated Aug 23.
In this variant, scammers use compromised school e-mail accounts to ask victims for urgent and prompt payment of school or tuition fees.
Victims would be asked to make payment to a bank account number listed in the e-mail, or risk facing legal consequences.
Victims would realise that they have been scammed only after checking, or receiving notifications from their schools.
The Straits Times reported on Aug 22 that earlier in August, several compromised e-mail addresses of students from Temasek Polytechnic (TP) were used to send out scam e-mails
The e-mails, which bore no name in the sign-off, said failure to pay would be referred to the legal department.
They also directed students to separate e-mail addresses that ended with “temasekpolytechnic.online”, to send proof of payment, or for clarification.
ST’s checks showed that the e-mail addresses ending with “temasekpolytechnic.online” were registered to online domain registrar Namecheap, while official TP e-mail addresses have their domains registered with the Government Technology Agency.
The Ministry of Education sent out an alert to parents and guardians on the Parents Gateway app on the morning of Aug 22, advising them to delete any suspicious e-mails immediately and not to click on any unfamiliar links or make any related transfers.
ST has also seen similar e-mail advisories sent by the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, the National Institute of Education, Singapore Management University and Republic Polytechnic to their students on Aug 21 and 22.
The police said that members of the public should check with schools via official channels before transferring any money, especially if payment requests are unscheduled.
They should also exercise discretion, and not click on clickable links or QR codes provided by unknown persons to make payments or transfers or download applications, without first verifying their legitimacy.
These can lead to fake bank websites that phish for banking credentials or malicious software, the police added.
For more information on scams, the public can go to , or call the ScamShield hotline on 1799.
