At least S$12 million lost in fake friend call scams since January; new variant involving Android malware

SINGAPORE: At least S$12 million (US$8.9 million) has been lost in fake friend call scams since January 2023, the police said on Wednesday (Jul 5), warning of a new variant involving malicious Android links.

At least 3,700 victims have fallen prey to such scams since the beginning of the year.

They would receive text messages or phone calls from unknown numbers – with or without the +65 prefix. Scammers would claim to be a friend or an acquaintance and ask the victims to guess their real identity. 

Once a name is provided, the scammer would assume the identity of the victim’s friend and ask them to update their contact details.

“The scammers would contact the victims subsequently to ask for a loan and would claim that he or she is unable to perform a banking transaction or is experiencing financial difficulties,” said the police. 

Victims would then be provided with a local bank account to transfer the money.

While there has been a “persistent trend” of such scams, the police said they have seen a new variant where scammers would send victims malicious links, asking them to help with simple tasks such as making purchases, reserving seats at a restaurant or tracking a missing phone. 

“These malicious links will lead victims to either phishing sites and/or the download of an Android Package Kit (APK) file, an application created for Android’s operating system,” said the police, adding that victims would discover unauthorised transactions after keying in their banking credentials or card details.