SINGAPORE — Residents here have lost more than S$4 million since March to phone scammers posing either as local or foreign officials, the police said on Wednesday (June 8), urging the public to be careful when responding to unsolicited calls.

Over the past three months or so, more than 50 police reports have been made about persons impersonating government officials.

The police said the scam is almost identical to fraud cases experienced in Hong Kong and China since mid-2015, whereby the scammers would lie to victims that parcels containing illegal items had been shipped in the victims’ names.

Victims here were then asked to remit monies to bank accounts in China or make fund transfers through internet banking to accounts in Malaysia to resolve the “issue”.

Initially, the scammers had posed as foreign government officials. However recently, the scammers have pretended to be officers from the Singapore Police Force or local courier companies such as Singpost.

In the recent cases, victims were also asked to visit a Web page to enter their personal information such as name, passport details, IC number, and bank details such as their usernames and passwords.

Disclosure of such personal information may allow scammers to access the victims’ Internet banking accounts, the police said.

The public is advised to ignore such calls and refrain from giving out personal information and bank details.

“No government agency will inform you to make a payment through a telephone call, especially to a third party’s bank account,” the police said.

Anyone with information related to this or other similar scams is urged to call the police hotline at 1800-255 0000, or dial 999 for urgent assistance.