Scammers Are Posing as NTUC to Give SIRS Money or Netflix to Give Free Subscriptions

You might have slowed down in your work because you’re now working at home during the Circuit Breaker period, but it turns out that’s scammers are working on overdrive during this period.

And they’ve become so creative, you’d wonder if they had been working as a scriptwriter before signing on to be scammers.

SPF: More Phishing Scams During Circuit Breaker Period. A Lot More.

Between 7 April to 7 May, SPF said that there have been 151 phishing scams being reported.

This number would have sounded normal until you read this: on average, there should be about 20 cases reported monthly.

That’s a sharp rise.

And if you think that scammers are just silly people who use a New York number to call you and say that they’re from AT&T, think again.

They’ve now upped their game and know what Singaporeans want.

For example, self-employed people are now applying for the SIRS grant, so scammers posed as NTUC to send this email:

Lest you can’t read, here’s what the email claims:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Kindly check the criteria attached, and confirm if you are eligible for SIRS and learn how to apply. Eligible persons will receive three quarterly cash payouts of 3000USD from the scheme. This is to help ease the effect of Covid-19 on employees and self-employed person.

Looks pretty legit if you just skim through the important words, though the “USD” is a glaring mistake.

The goal is to get you to download the file, and ta-da: your device would most probably be compromised, and if you’ve saved everything there , you can say goodbye to everything there.

Another example is this:

Lest you can read:

Hi Ong,
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we are giving out 3 months of Netflix Premium to help you fight BORING at home! Details: <URL>

If my surname is Ong, I’d have probably clicked on it despite the obvious grammar and lexicon issues (no such thing as Netflix Premium lah: you either pay for Netflix or you go YouTube instead).

The police said, “Members of the public who have fallen victim to such phishing scams would receive emails or text messages purportedly sent from a company they know or trust, such as banks, government agencies, trade unions like NTUC, or companies such as SingPost, StarHub and Netflix.”

The scammers would direct you to a fraudulent website whereby you’d be asked for your credit or debit card details and a one-time password.

The police therefore have this advice for us:

• Do not click on links provided in unsolicited emails and text messages.
• Always verify the authenticity of the information with the official websites or sources.
• Never disclose personal or Internet banking details and OTP to anyone.
• Report any fraudulent credit or debit card charges to your bank and cancel your card immediately.

If you would like to provide information about these scams, you can call the police hotline at 1800 255 0000 or submit their information online at https://www.police.gov.sg/iwitness, or call the anti-scam helpline at 1800 722 6688.

To know more about scams, you can visit http://www.scamalert.sg or subscribe to our YouTube channel, as we’ve worked with the SPF to come out with a few anti-scam videos like this: