He wanted to buy cute toilet rolls for grandkids but lost $700 instead

It took Mr Kamal, who is in his sixties, around two weeks to realise that scammers had his credit card details.

He was drawn to an online advertisement for toilet rolls in late October 2024. Mr Kamal, who declined to give his full name citing privacy concerns, could not recall if it appeared on Facebook or Instagram.

What caught his eye was the bear‑patterned packaging on each individually wrapped roll, says Mr Kamal, who works in the public sector. A pack had cost $9. He does not remember how many rolls were in a pack.

He thought the cute design would cheer his two granddaughters, both under five, during their weekly visits to his Choa Chu Kang Housing Board flat.

Mr Kamal clicked on the ad. It looked legitimate, he says, and the offer was fairly priced.

“A pop-up appeared and I was prompted to autofill my personal particulars (including address) and payment details,” he says.

Autofill features on smartphones insert stored information into data fields. Mr Kamal only had to enter the credit verification value, or the security code printed behind his credit card, before completing the transaction, he adds.

The toilet rolls never arrived.

About two weeks later, someone claiming to be a bank officer called to ask if he had bought anything in Australia. The caller warned that his credit card details might be compromised and asked if he wanted to cancel it.

Unsure if the call was a scam, Mr Kamal told the caller he would contact the bank and hung up. He looked up his bank’s hotline on its website the next day and called.

The bank confirmed that four charges were made on his credit card the day before, totalling over A$843 (S$723). The purchases were for electronic items from an Australian department store.

Checking back on his text messages, Mr Kamal realised that his credit card details were added to an unknown Google Pay account on Oct 27, 2024 – the same day he clicked on the ad.

Mr Kamal has since cancelled the affected credit card and made a police report. Investigations are ongoing.

Police Superintendent Rosie Ann McIntyre, assistant director of the Scam Public Education Office’s operations department, explains that tracing stolen funds is challenging across all scam types.

Scammers often move money quickly through bank accounts, send it overseas, use money mules, or convert it into cryptocurrency to hide the trail, she adds.

Click and trick

E-commerce scams were one of the top five scam types, by number of cases, in the first half of 2025. There were 3,237 cases during this period, according to police figures.

In e-commerce scams, victims are attracted by deals on online marketplaces or social media platforms. After making payment, the promised goods or services would never arrive.

In some cases, the victims were sellers who did not receive payment after delivering the goods or services to scammers posing as buyers. Scammers sometimes provided victims with fake screenshots as “proof of payment”.

Scammers often use attractive offers to trigger emotions, such as excitement or the fear of missing out (Fomo) to compel immediate action, says Supt McIntyre.

Cases of live-stream shopping scams were also up this year, she notes.

From January to October 2025, $1.3 million were lost to scammers across 144 cases – up more than 50 per cent from $840,000 across 96 cases over the same period in 2024.

Season of shopping scams

With Chinese New Year and Ramadan approaching, Supt McIntyre warns of heightened risks of e-commerce scams.

During this period, she explains, consumers tend to buy more within shorter periods.

The volume of tasks – such as shopping for new clothes, confirming catering orders and booking deliveries – can result in “decision fatigue”.

This hampers the ability of individuals to scrutinise each payment or transaction carefully, Supt McIntyre explains.

Scammers exploit this urgency and the cultural routines surrounding celebrations.

Cases involving catering and food-related items tend to rise around major holidays, says Supt McIntyre, when large family gatherings and last-minute preparations create both high demand and time pressure.

Scammers may also take advantage of expected deliveries during the festive season through phishing attempts, she says. Phishing tricks victims into disclosing personal or bank account and credit card details.

Scammers would send text messages or emails claiming additional payment is needed or citing failed delivery attempts.

Victims, believing they are paying only small amounts, would provide their payment details and later discover unauthorised transactions on their accounts, she adds.

A year after the scam, Mr Kamal still shops online – but with safer habits.

“l’ll probably get baju kurung (online) this festive season,” he says. Baju kurung is a traditional Malay attire often worn on festive occasions like Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

He now relies on platforms offering cash-on-delivery or secure payment options, citing Shopee as an example, and carefully reads buyers’ reviews before clicking “pay”, he says.

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Act against scams