Scammers increasingly using Singpass-verified Carousell accounts: MHA
Despite a decline in the number of scams on the online shopping platform, criminals are increasingly exploiting verified accounts, says the Ministry of Home Affairs.
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SINGAPORE: The online shopping platform Carousell will implement more safeguards targeted at preventing the misuse of verified accounts for scams by Jan 31 next year, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Friday (Nov 21).
Investigations by the Singapore Police Force found that scammers have increasingly used Singpass-verified Carousell accounts to carry out scams.
They did so by phishing login details to take over verified accounts, paying users to hand over their accounts, or using stolen or purchased Singpass credentials to verify new accounts.
To address this, MHA said, Carousell has committed to improving authentication processes to prevent malicious takeovers, such as offering more secure login options like passkeys and biometric logins.
It has also committed to suspending accounts detected to have been relinquished to scammers and blacklisting Singpass credentials previously used to verify scam accounts from verifying new ones.
This comes after Carousell completed its user verification pilot from July 2024 to June 2025.
Under the E-Commerce Code of the Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA), Carousell is required to verify users who advertise or post about the sales of goods or services against government-issued records.
The platform conducted enhanced verification on selected high-risk sellers and advertisers between Jul 1 and Dec 31 last year.
On Mar 10, 2025, MHA extended the assessment period of Carousell’s user verification pilot for six months until Jun 30.
“MHA had highlighted that if the number of e-commerce scams on Carousell did not drop significantly over the pilot, MHA would require Carousell to verify the identities of all sellers,” it said.
From April to June 2025, the number of e-commerce scams on Carousell rose to 513 cases from 470 cases in the same period in 2024.
But there was a 36 per cent drop in the total reported scams on the platform, from 1,125 cases in April to June 2024 to 720 cases in April to June 2025.
“MHA will continue to monitor the effectiveness of Carousell’s measures in reducing the number of e-commerce scams and direct Carousell to implement additional measures, if necessary,” said the ministry.
“MHA takes a serious view of the abuse of Singpass accounts. The police will take enforcement action against Singpass mules if they are found to have abused their Singpass credentials to facilitate scams.”
MHA added that it is considering legislating new offences to better act against users who wilfully relinquish Singpass-verified online accounts for criminal purposes.
