Victims have lost $1.4m to scammers pretending to be Shopee, UnionPay, MAS employees since January

SINGAPORE - The public is advised to be vigilant against scammers pretending to be employees from Shopee, UnionPay or the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), after victims lost at least $1.4 million in two months.

Since January, police have received 12 reports of such impersonation scams.

In a joint statement on Feb 28, the police and MAS said victims would receive calls from a scammer pretending to be from Shopee, who would inform them that they would be charged recurring fees because of an insurance policy they had supposedly signed up for on the platform.

The victims would be redirected to a second scammer claiming to be a UnionPay service representative trying to verify their policy details.

The scammer would ask victims for their personal information, such as bank account details and credentials, said the authorities.

Victims would then be told that the fees would automatically be deducted from their bank accounts linked to Shopee, unless they cancelled the policy.

To cancel the non-existent policy, the scammer would guide the victims to transfer money to a specified bank account for purported safekeeping, via a screen-sharing function on WhatsApp.

“Throughout the process, victims were given the reassurance that their monies would be refunded upon successful cancellation of their policies,” the authorities said.

In other cases, victims would be redirected to a scammer claiming to be an MAS officer, after being contacted by a bogus Shopee employee.

The scammer would then tell the victims that their bank accounts were involved in money laundering activities, and they would have to transfer money to a specified bank account to assist in investigations, said the authorities.

“The scammer would send screenshots of court orders purportedly from MAS, through WhatsApp, to convince the victims to transfer to them the monies,” they added.

Victims would realise they had been scammed when the scammers became uncontactable or when they did not receive the refunds as promised.

In their statement, the authorities reiterated that Shopee and UnionPay would not request personal information or payments from their users via unsolicited phone calls, e-mails, WhatsApp messages or SMS.

MAS would also never ask members of the public to transfer money, or disclose personal or banking credentials, they said.