Well, here's a new level of audacity, or stupidity, depending on how you see it:

Kidnap message

A new kidnap message making the rounds in Singapore has the sender providing an NRIC number and local bank account number, as if trying to prove that he/ she is local enough and not some scam perpetuated by overseas syndicates.

The message threatened to break the recipient's daughter's leg if $500 is not transferred to the bank account.

In what appears to be a change of heart, a second message was then sent out to the recipient asking for $50K (S$50,000) instead, or else.

The time stamp on the two messages indicate they were sent on the same day on April 22. The first was at 12.14pm and the second was about six hours later at 6.04pm.

Previous iteration

Such ransom scam messages are not new.

They can originate from syndicates overseas and rely on spamming the same message en masse to trawl for victims.

In early April 2018, an identical message was sent out en masse to Singapore phone numbers:

[related_story]

Except the ransom asked for then was $500,000, which sparked complaints from Singaporeans that it was too expensive. Typical.