Victims in Singapore lose $48,000 to food advertisement scams since mid-June

SINGAPORE – At least 77 cases of scams related to food-related advertisments on social media have been reported in less than a month, with the police advising the public to be careful of such ruses.

In an advisory on July 2, the police said this phishing scam variant has seen victims losing at least $48,000 since June 15.

In this scam variant, victims would come across food-related advertisements or social media posts featuring various heavily discounted food items, such as durians and crackers, on social media platforms like Tik Tok, Facebook and Instagram.

Enticed by the attractive promotions, victims would click on URL links in the posts and be redirected to phishing websites.

Victims would then be prompted to key in their credit or debit card details, banking credentials or One-Time Passwords (OTPs) to complete the purchase.

In some cases, victims who are users of multi-currency mobile wallet YouTrip would receive a subsequent SMS request to key in their login code, upon which they would receive an SMS, e-mail or application notification that there had been a “new” login to their account.

Victims would realise that they had been scammed when they discover:

Overall, victims in Singapore have lost more than $3.4 billion to scams since 2019.

The most common ruse in 2024

was e-commerce scams

, with 11,665 reported cases. Victims of investment scams lost the most money – $320.7 million.

For more information on scams, the public can visit

www.scamshield.gov.sg