Fintech StashAway joins banks in battling impersonation scams
SCAMS have extended beyond impersonating banks to fintechs, with such cases on the rise amid a global pandemic.
Singapore robo-adviser StashAway told The Business Times that it has filed a police report regarding a WhatsApp message making its rounds in Singapore asking for investments. In a message written in both English and Chinese, it claimed that the startup was "starting the publicity of D round financing and investment services", requesting that the recipient participate by joining a WhatsApp group of other investors.
"With this single investment, your money doubles in power, because every penny that goes into your pocket doubles in profit," it said.
A StashAway spokesperson said the fintech was notified by members of the public about the scam messages since March 14. It filed a police report the next day and also informed the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
It is believed that the messages were sent indiscriminately to various Singapore numbers and were not limited to StashAway customers.
"Immediately upon learning about the scam, our CTO (chief technology officer) and technology team investigated to ensure there were no data leaks on our end," said a StashAway statement. "They found no suspicious activity, and as of today, there is absolutely no indication that there has been a data breach.
"Given how many non-StashAway users have been contacted, we're confident that this is a situation of a malicious group impersonating us to contact details they retrieved elsewhere," it said.
It is unclear how many people have received the message to date, but as at Monday, at least 20 people have contacted the fintech.
"Over the course of the week, it became clear that the scam is becoming more widespread, and we are reaching out to clients directly," said the statement.
StashAway also posted on its social media channels such as Facebook to inform the public to ignore the message. The issue was also escalated directly to WhatsApp and Facebook.
Singapore's overall crime rate rose last year due to a rise in scam cases, with cyber extortion, e-commerce, social media impersonation, phishing and loan scams all up from a year ago.
In the first half of 2020, the number of banking-related phishing scams jumped to 898 from 34 in the same period a year ago, increasing by more than 25 times.
In total, victims were cheated of S$3.6 million in the first half of 2020, up from S$93,000 in the same period in 2019.
For scam-related advice, the public can call the anti-scam helpline on 1800-722-6688 or visit www.scamalert.sg.
