Singapore Anti-Scam Centre and Four Banks Disrupt Over 900 Scam Attempts, Avert S$35 Million in Losses

Singapore's police Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) and four partners, DBS, UOB, OCBC and GXS, disrupted over 900 scam attempts in a joint operation that ran from 1 September to 31 October. The police said on 11 November that the interventions averted over S$35 million in potential losses.

How the operation worked

The police release credits Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology with speeding up the exchange of information between the centre and the banks, so that likely victims could be found and contacted quickly. ASC officers and the banks sent over 27,000 SMS alerts to more than 15,000 bank customers.

The scams stopped were of several kinds: e-commerce, job, friend impersonation, government official impersonation and investment scams.

Compared with the previous round

AsiaOne notes that RPA was "again deployed" this time. The July–August round, with Standard Chartered as a fifth bank, sent over 3,300 SMS alerts to more than 2,700 customers, disrupted over 400 attempts and averted more than S$46 million. The September–October round sent about eight times as many alerts, yet saved a smaller sum. The police haven't explained either change, or why Standard Chartered isn't named this time.

What the police tell the public to do

The release repeats the police's Add, Check, Tell advice. Add the ScamShield app, two-factor authentication on bank, social media and Singpass accounts, and transaction limits on internet banking, PayNow included. Check whether a request for personal data or money is genuine before acting on it. Tell your bank, ScamShield or the police about a suspected scam: the ScamShield Helpline is 1799 and the Police Hotline 1800-255-0000.