On the 31st of March 2024, the Judiciary Police (PJ) received reports from more than ten residents who claimed to have received text messages sent under the guise of the electronic payment platform "Union Pay." These messages alleged that their loyalty points were about to expire and prompted the recipients to click on the link embedded in the message. The link directed them to a counterfeit website, where they could purportedly exchange points for gifts at a discounted price. Through this scheme, the fraudsters were able to harvest the victims' personal and credit card information. After the victims entered a one-time verification code, their credit card information was stolen, and they incurred losses ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. As the scammers in the cases above had technically altered the sender ID of the phishing text messages to match the official Union Pay number, the victims mistakenly believed that the fraudulent messages were officially sent by "Union Pay".
The Judiciary Police's Anti-Fraud Coordination Centre advises citizens to take the following precautions:
1. Regardless of the sender, do not casually click on links within text messages.
2. Whenever personal, bank account, or credit card information is required online, always verify the authenticity of the information through official channels.
3. If you suspect you are a target of scams, immediately seek assistance by calling the Judiciary Police’s Anti-fraud enquiry hotline at 8800 7777 or the Crime report hotline at 993 to report the incident.
