Great Eastern, OCBC employees help elderly woman avoid S$250,000 scam
An online scam victim sending a credit card number to a scammer. (File Photo: iStock)
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SINGAPORE: An elderly woman avoided being cheated of more than S$250,000, thanks to an alert Great Eastern customer service officer and OCBC employees.
On Dec 2, 2023, a scammer impersonating a government official from China called the 67-year-old victim, said the Singapore Police Force (SPF) in a news release on Tuesday (Jan 9).
The scammer told the woman she had suspicious funds in a bank account under her name in China and accused her of having committed a crime. The scammer then transferred the victim’s phone call to a second scammer, also impersonating another Chinese government official.
Following the instructions of the second scammer, the victim opened a new UOB bank account under her name on Dec 13, purportedly to assist in investigations, and provided the internet banking credentials of that account to the scammer.
The woman was also told to withdraw all her money from other bank accounts and to liquidate her insurance policies to deposit into the UOB account.
The victim went to a Great Eastern office in Jurong East on Dec 18 to liquidate her insurance policies and deposit the surrender value monies into her OCBC account.
When questioned by a Great Eastern customer service officer who found the victim’s account for the surrender suspicious, the woman claimed that the money was for a house purchase and renovation fees but was unable to provide more details when probed further.
“Despite having to make a loss for the early surrender of her four insurance policies, the victim insisted on proceeding with the surrender, further raising the suspicion of the Great Eastern customer service officer,” said the police.
He promptly escalated the case to OCBC, which contacted the Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) for intervention.
The authorities worked with OCBC to prevent the victim from making further transactions, while ASC officers met the victim at her home and convinced her that she had fallen for a scam. They also acted on the UOB account under the control of the second scammer.
"The alertness of the Great Eastern customer service officer, and the timely intervention by OCBC staff and ASC officers prevented the victim from potentially losing over S$250,000," said police.
“OCBC is committed to working closely with the Police to fight scams and protect customers’ funds,” said the bank’s anti-fraud team chief Beaver Chua.
Government official impersonation scams
One variant of the government official impersonation scam involves scammers impersonating officers from government organisations and accusing victims of their involvement in criminal or money laundering activities overseas.
Members of the public would receive unsolicited calls from a first scammer who would impersonate a bank officer. The first scammer would allege that the victims have outstanding credit card charges on their cards that are linked to criminal or money laundering activities.
The first scammer would then transfer the victim’s call to a second scammer purporting to be a government official. The second scammer would inform the victims that they were under investigation for criminal or money laundering activities.
The communication between the second scammer and the victim may subsequently move to messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram.
The second scammer would then instruct the victims to do any of the following:
- Relinquish bank account details
- Transfer money to a third-party bank account purportedly to assist in investigations
- Open new bank accounts
- Meet unknown subjects to hand over/collect/sign fake documents
- Report their whereabouts and told not to divulge details about the investigation
