Over the last couple of days, you might or might not have received a bill from Singtel, asking you to fork out money for (extra) services. But here’s the thing: you’re not subscribed to Singtel, and you definitely did not apply for any extra services that Singtel might have offered.
So… why?
While I’m not exactly Doctor Strange, I can tell that that is probably what Facebook user Clarence Tan thought when he received a bill from Singtel requesting him to fork out $8.35, despite not being part of its subscribers’ base.
In fact, he was so convinced that it was a phishing scam that he took to Facebook to alert others about.
But while it’s definitely a valiant effort on his part, I started to question:
Is there actually more than meets the eye?
What exactly happened?
On 21 May, Tan posted a status update on Facebook (which has since been updated to reflect the latest events; we will get to that later), stating that he received a billing letter from them despite not being a Singtel customer.
“I received a phishing mail that looks exactly like Singtel’s letter asking me to pay $8.35,” he wrote.
Tan subsequently rang up the telco, and spoke to a customer support officer who expressed that they have received numerous calls about this. He was then told that it was a phishing mail, and it has been actually going on for quite some time.
A photo of the bill accompanied the post, verifying that the figure is indeed $8.35.
Tan then warned the public to dial the police should such bills be addressed to them. The post ended up being shared almost 4,000 times.
No twister fries, but definitely a twist
Thereafter, Singtel released its own statement on Facebook, and suffice it to say that it’s a twist as incinerating as the bulk of Avengers: Infinity War.
If you can’t read it:
We would like to clarify and respond to Mr Clarence Tan’s Facebook post where he questions the authenticity of a recent Singtel bill he received.
We would like to inform Mr Tan and our customers that the bills in question are indeed issued by Singtel and are accurate. We are currently in the process of moving all customer accounts to a new billing system and these bills are determined to be the final bills of terminated accounts. We will follow up with affected customers where applicable.
We are sorry that our customer care officer had incorrectly informed Mr Tan that the bill was a scam.
We regret any confusion and inconvenience caused.
So it seems that instead of being the phishing scam that was assumed, it was actually a final bill of Tan’s terminated account, that was sent in the process of “moving all customer accounts to a new billing system”.
As shook as Tony Stark
Tan, in the same vein as Stark after witnessing a particularly ashy phenomenon, then edited his original post to reflect the latest twist in the tale.
Transcript:
Hi everyone,
Singtel had responded with a post and the letter seemed to be legit and it was due to their customer service officer misinforming that it was a scam. Their post can be seen in the screenshot below.
I’ve edited the post so as to not mislead anyone.
Hope this clarifies everything. Cheers everyone.
Incidentally, Tan wasn’t the only who took to Facebook regarding the matter.
Moral of the story?
If there was a lesson to be learnt from this episode, it would be that not all news are fake, as are ‘questionable’ emails your mum explicitly informed not open.
Get confirmation not just from one source, but more than one. And get it from the official source.
Because I presume you’ll have experienced more than one instance whereby you got lost somewhere, and believed a passerby’s direction only to be lost-er.
Now you know what Singaporeans are talking about today; do check back tomorrow for another piece of news of the day!
Watch this for a complete summary of what REALLY happened to Qoo10, and why it's like a K-drama:
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