S'pore woman trolls phone scammers pretending to be police, uses their tactics on them

Congratulations Cynthia, you win the Internet for a day. Transfer us $10,000 to collect your prize.

Nyi Nyi Thet | Jonathan Lim | June 07, 2016, 10:39 AM

There has been a new strain of scam calls recently.

According to the Singapore Police Force's(SPF) Facebook, the template for these calls tend to be as such.

The recipients of such calls would first hear an automated Mandarin voice message instructing them to enter a number. A Mandarin-speaking operator would then ask for their personal information, or inform them to proceed to the police station with their identification card or police officers would be despatched to their residence.

Last month, parcel delivery service DHL warned people not to be duped by scam calls pretending to be from DHL which were phishing for personal information.

 

A Facebook user named Cynthia Tay-Leck appeared poised to be another victim in this phone scam attempt when she received a call from someone identifying themselves as part of the SPF.

That is until she turned the tables around with a combination of calm, wit and attempted murder.

In case you can't view the above post, here it is in full.

Just received call fr9m this number asking for my whole name and Nric saying that they are calling from 999 police station. So I played ard with them since I'm having holiday day mood today.

Caller: hello I'm calling from 999 police station. We need you to provide your full name and identity number for verification.

Me: what is it abt?

Caller: for a very serious offence.

Me: if serious offence you should be doing arresting already. So it's not serious. My name is Ong HUA HUA

Nric S8817986H (爸爸要去酒吧了) (Father going pub already)

Caller: thank you for your verification. From our system it had shown that you have a package from USA to Singapore and it contained 200k cash and 2 fake passport.

Me: oh yes is mine. You can keep the passport and send me the cash.

Caller: we can't release the parcel without you paying the fine.

Me: I'm sorry I can't do it now cos I'm halfway killing someone.

Caller: but the fine have to be paid before 2pm otherwise you will be jailed.

Me: ok. So clearing the parcel is more important to stop me killing someone?

Caller: this is handled to another department and my department only handle the fake passport and 200k cash.

Me: ok I will go to the police station today and pay the fine and collect my cash.

Caller: you don't have to come down. You can just transfer the money via bank tranfer

Me: I trying to do Internet banking to you but receiver have to pay administration charged of usd 1000 first then after you paid then the bank will release the fine to you. Can you pay the administration charges first?

Caller: hung up

This is Cynthia, she doesn't reveal her full name and identity over the phone, doesn't fall for phone scams and answers the phone when she is halfway killing someone, be like Cynthia.

 

Top image from Flickr

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