Bogus 'law firms' and lawyer impersonation scams on the rise, cautions Singapore's LawSoc
THE Law Society (LawSoc) has seen a growing number of fraudsters impersonating lawyers, setting up websites for bogus "law firms" and launching phishing attacks purportedly from lawyers' email addresses.
As online transactions increase, scams have also accelerated, with perpetrators taking on more sophisticated modus operandi, LawSoc president Gregory Vijayendran said in a virtual press conference on Friday.
The LawSoc has seen five cases of phishing, one case of impersonation and two cases of bogus law firms since 2019, with the latter two cases reported this year. But these numbers are likely the "tip of the iceberg", Mr Vijayendran said, and not an exhaustive representation of similar scams.
He cited the case of "Goh Keng Law Firm", a fake practice first reported by The Business Times (BT), that had cobbled together photographs of genuine lawyers but used fake names. They also posted client reviews taken from other law practices and would ask for commitment fees from prospective clients before taking on the matter.
Among the lawyers named in the website, which is still live at the time of writing, are Keith Hsu, Sharifah Ally and Muhd Shafiuddin Ong from Emerald Law. However, their headshots used on the fake firm's website do not correspond with the ones on Emerald Law's site.
Mr Vijayendran said a takedown notice was sent on May 17 to the company hosting the website and the LawSoc is waiting to hear back from them.
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The police confirmed that a report had been lodged in relation to this case, but did not respond to BT's queries on the status of its investigation and whether they have received other similar complaints.
In another example, scammers set up a bogus website purportedly representing the international network of a Singapore law firm. The perpetrators fraudulently replicated content of the firm's actual website, including photographs and profiles of its lawyers, but replaced all references to "Singapore" on its website with the name of a Chinese city.
"A lot of the fraud that we are seeing now also are cases in which the criminals are becoming more sophisticated. They are becoming cleverer and they are obviously trying to stay ahead of the curve to dupe unsuspecting members of the public," Mr Vijayendran said.
Some of these cases involve culprits based outside Singapore, he noted.
He also cited recent examples of phishing attacks. In one case, the fraudster used spoofed addresses to send emails to a law firm such that they could plausibly look like they are coming from clients. In another, the scammer used forged invoices to harass clients for payments.
LawSoc was unable to share if unsuspecting members of the public have been duped in any of the cases of the fake law firms, and how much financial loss was sustained.
"Often times, thankfully, (the fraud would be) stopped in the nick of time and you know action has been taken," Mr Vijayendran said.
He noted, however, that the Solicitors Regulation Authority in the UK reported up to £700,000 (S$1.3 million) of losses due to identity theft and the use of impersonation tactics.
LawSoc cautions members of the public to verify emails purportedly from a lawyer, or the identity of a lawyer or law firm, by checking with the official public directory of lawyers and law firms maintained by the Legal Services Regulatory Authority.
The Law Society updates all scams involving lawyers or law firms that it is aware of on its website: www.lawsociety.org.sg/news-media/email-scams
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