SUBSCRIBERS

Fake SMS scams: Do banks and telcos have a duty of care to customers?

In places like HK, pre-registration is needed before a party can send SMSes with alphanumeric sender IDs, like the name of a bank

Yong Jun Yuan
Published Wed, Jan 12, 2022 · 09:50 PM

    Singapore

    WHEN some OCBC customers started receiving SMSes last month that they were being locked out of their accounts, quite a few were duped into clicking on a link that mirrored the OCBC website but was actually set up by scammers.

    The links in the messages should have sounded alarm bells in the customers' heads, as they did not look the same as official OCBC website links. But these customers were lulled into a false sense of security because the SMSes showed up in the same message threads of older, but official OCBC messages.

    Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.