SINGAPORE - A 64-year-old woman almost lost $100,000 to fraudsters pretending to be government officials, but was saved by her bank, which detected the unusual attempted transaction.

In a statement on May 14, the police said the woman had received a call on April 9 from a scammer pretending to be a bank employee. The scammer told her about unauthorised transactions on her card, which she denied making.

She was then directed to another scammer who posed as a staff member from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

The second scammer told her that she was under investigation for money laundering, and instructed her to give them her banking credentials and transfer $100,000 to a bank account.

They assured the woman that the funds would be returned once the investigation was complete.

The woman complied with the request, said the police.

However, the fraudsters’ plan was foiled after the DBS Bank Anti-Scam team noticed the attempted transaction. The team realised the woman was being scammed after she told them that the money was for an investigation.

DBS then escalated the case to the Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) after finding out that the woman had revealed all her banking credentials to the scammers.

“The ASC coordinated with other banks to temporarily suspend outgoing transactions while the victim proceeded to lodge a police report,” said the police.

“Through the swift intervention by ASC and DBS Bank, the transaction was successfully stopped in time and a potential loss of $100,000 was prevented.”

In its statement, the police advised members of the public to adopt actions under the ACT acronym – add security features, check for signs, and tell the authorities and others about scam – to avoid being scammed.

In January, victims of government official impersonation scams lost more than $1.6 million in total.

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