MAS Warns About New Scam Where Scammers Pretend To Be MAS Staff

Amidst the COVID-19 situation, the shortage of masks and the hoarding of daily necessities, there are still scammers around.

And no, I don’t mean the scammers on Carousell who promise to sell you masks but go MIA.

I’m talking about these kinds of scammers:

MAS Warns About New Scam Where Scammers Pretend To Be MAS Staff

As of late, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) wishes to alert the public that there have been reports of fraudulent messages and calls to members of the public.

During this phone calls, the scammers will try to impersonate MAS staff.

These calls display a MAS contact number and can be received as regular phone calls or through apps such as Viber and WhatsApp.

According to MAS, the MAS logo is sometimes also used as the profile picture on the messaging apps.

Effort seh.

How It Works

Phone calls usually begin with the scammers telling the person who picked up the phone that his or her bank account has been locked or suspended and that they would offer to help them fix the problem.

They would then ask the victim to give details of his or her bank account, internet banking user ID and password.

Other related scams where scammers pretend to be staff from banks and try to collect personal information from victims is also prevalent.

If it hasn’t been clear, read this again:

Officers Will Never Ask For Personal Banking Info Or Security Login Details

A general rule of thumb to remember is that officers, even bank officers or police officers, will never ask for personal banking information or security login credentials from members of the public.

The public should also avoid giving authorisation permission to suspicious authentication requests like digital token authentication or one-time password requests through phone calls if you have not made any Internet banking transactions.

Anyone who receives a suspicious call is advised to end the phone call immediately and report the call to MAS at [email protected].

You can also block and report as spam the number on your phone.

If you are the victim of a scam or have come across such an incident, do not hesitate to contact the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit it online here.

And also check out our scam-related videos we’ve done with the SPF here:

Stay safe, everyone.