To be a good scammer, you have to be a clear and effective communicator.
This is why graduates at the University of Swindles and Diddles usually end up being the most proficient scammers, because the university demands excellence from its students, especially when it comes to the use of language to deceive.
Consequently, those who choose to scam without getting educated first might find it hard to do so, as this incompetent swindler found out.
DBS Impersonator Used Such Broken English That ‘Victim’ Sensed the Scam Right from the Start
A woman has taken to Facebook to share details of a scam of which was laughably ill-conceived, to say the least.
The user shared a post on the Facebook group Complaint Singapore on Monday (28 Sep).
According to the woman, she had just spoken with a customer service officer from POSB after making a payment to a merchant online when she received a call on Viber from a man.
Shortly after calling her, the man, named John Michael, sent her some dubious messages over text, claiming that the woman’s account was “blocked”.
After asking the woman to “update” without giving any specifics, the man said, “You need to block”.
As the puzzled woman rightly asked: “My account is blocked and I need to update and I need to block? Why?”
His answer? “So you can use online banking”.
So, in other words, this woman’s account was apparently blocked, and the only way she could make online transactions was to block it again.
When asked why she had to “block” her already blocked account, the man answered: “So your documents don’t verify”.
This sentence, as you can tell, makes absolutely no sense.
For some unknown reason, the proficiency of his English seems to decrease with time, as his messages became increasingly ungrammatical and nonsensical, including lines such as:
“So now I’m so you can use online banking”.
“So now I’m update your document”.
The woman, who was more confused than an audience member at the recent US presidential debate, clearly wasn’t falling for the scam, and kept asking the man what he meant.
At one point, the man just gave up the whole charade and asked outright, “Can you send me your passport number?”
When asked why, the man, being the skilled con artist that he is, answered: “So now I’m update”.
Smart.
He then tried to convince the woman that her ATM card had been blocked as well, but that didn’t work either.
One actually feels sad for the scammer, because he’s so bad at what he does.
Be Wary of Callers Asking for Banking Information
This woman was lucky that her scammer was so incompetent, but this isn’t always the case.
To avoid being a victim of a banking scam, remember the following tips:
- Never reveal confidential or personal information online
- Never reveal your PIN or OTP to anyone, including your bank
Your bank will never ask you for your OTP, PIN, passwords, or bank account details over the phone, text, or email.
If you receive a suspicious call purportedly from your bank, hang up and call the hotline published on the bank’s website to verify the authenticity of the request.
Do not call the number provided by the caller.
While we need to keep our guard up to avoid being a victim, this scammer above should maybe think about upskilling before carrying out another badly planned scam.
To know more about scams in Singapore, watch these videos we’ve done in collaboration with the Singapore Police Force (and also subscribe to our YouTube channel for more informative and meaningful videos, please!):
Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:
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