Scammers Now SMSing People, Threatening to Burn Down Their Premises for Ransom

It’s true: SMSes are used for threats.

When I look at my SMS inbox, all I see are threats.

One’s from someone called Mindef who told me that if I don’t book my IPPT soon, I’ll have to go for 20 sessions of RT. Another is also from Mindef who told me that I have to attend a paid chalet soon.

I scroll down more and see one from Singtel, who “threatened” me twice in one day: one’s to tell me that I’ve used 90% of my data and the other is that I’ve used all my data.

Suffice to say, it’s rather depressing to look at your SMS inbox.

And now, one more threat might be coming.

The only difference is that this threat isn’t real.

Scammers Threaten to Burn Down Your Place if You Don’t Pay Money

If you’d have remembered, a few weeks ago, scammers claimed to have kidnapped your kid—the only problem is that they didn’t know if you’ve a son or daughter.

And now, scammers are changing their modus operandi.

The SPF has issued a statement, stating that there have been 69 reports about scammers threatening to burn down people’s premises if they didn’t transfer money to a bank account.

Just like the kidnap scam, they’re using SMS. Maybe the scammers have too many free SMSes as well.

So far, no one has been scammed.

Here’s SPF’s statement in full:

If you can’t read:

#sgscamalert
#spreadthewordonscams

POLICE ADVISORY ON NEW VARIANT OF SCAMS

The Police would like to alert members of the public to a new variant of scams. To date, Police have received more than 69 reports, where victims had received threatening Short Message Service (SMS) messages instructing them to make fund transfers to a designated bank account or risk their premises being set on fire. No monetary loss from such scams has been reported.

Members of the public are advised to take the following measures with regard to such scams:

1. Remain calm and do not transfer any money as instructed by the SMS messages;
2. Do not reply to the SMS. Block and report the number as spam.

If you wish to provide any information relating to such cases, please call the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. If you require urgent Police assistance, please dial ‘999’.

You may also call the anti-scam helpline at 1800-722-6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg to seek scam-related advice. Join the ‘let’s fight scams’ campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with your family and friends. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from becoming the next scam victim.

For your info, deliberately setting fire on other people’s premises is a serious offence: called arson, you could be charged for the offence of mischief by fire, and could face seven years’ jailtime and a fine.

If you want to watch some entertaining and informative videos about scams, check out our YouTube channel, whereby we’ve worked with the SPF to come out with a few anti-scam videos: