Iras warns of email scam impersonating the Commissioner of Inland Revenue

SINGAPORE — The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) is advising the public to ignore an email message by senders impersonating the Commissioner of Inland Revenue Ng Wai Choong. 

This scam message tells recipients that they need an approval pass to receive an unverified international fund transfer, Iras said on Friday (Jan 21).

In an advisory posted on its website, the government agency said that the message would show up as being signed off by Mr Ng.

The scam message would state that the recipient’s bank accounts had been blocked from receiving an unverified international fund transfer. The scammers then asked recipients to get a letter of confirmation from "the Bill Gate (sic) foundation" or to buy an approval pass to facilitate the transfer.

Recipients of such messages are advised to ignore them, and not to provide personal, credit card or bank account details, make any payment or follow the sender's instructions.

“Iras would like to advise that the authority will not ask you to obtain any kind of approval pass to facilitate a fund transfer,” Iras added.

The agency advised those who have been affected by the scam to file police reports.

This latest scam comes on the back of a series of impersonation attempts where scammers have pretended to be from government agencies, the police, the courts and banks.

DBS bank on Wednesday issued an alert about phishing scams via phone text messages, after a screenshot of a message received by a customer about the "suspension" of his account circulated online.

On Monday, the Singapore Police Force released an advisory warning of fake phone text messages appearing to be from the police that would show up with "SPF" in the header.