The Singapore Police Force would like to warn the public against falling prey to a new variation of the lucky draw scam which surfaced in Singapore recently.

The modus operandi of this new variation of the lucky draw scam is as follows:

i. The scammer would first send a text message via Short Message Service (SMS) to the victim to congratulate him/her for winning a cash prize in a lucky draw purportedly held by a well-known company;

ii. The SMS will contain instructions to the victim to call a foreign telephone number purported to be the company’s call centre for details on how to claim the prize;

iii. When the victim calls the number, the scammer would instruct the victim to purchase several phone top-up cards to facilitate the claiming of the “winnings”;

iv. The victim would be asked to disclose the top-up card number and PIN to the scammer;

v. With the card number and PIN information, the scammer would quickly use up all the call credits in the top-up cards; and

vi. In some cases, the victims were also requested to transfer cash into foreign bank accounts as fees to convert their “winnings” into Singapore dollars.

Crime Prevention Measures

The public is advised to adopt the following preventive measures in relation to this scam:

i. Ignore notifications of a win in a foreign lottery especially when you did not purchase a lottery ticket;

ii. Do not give your PIN information to anyone;

iii. Do not purchase phone top-up cards or comply with any other instructions given by the scammers;

iv. Do not make any advance payment;

v. Do not reply to such SMSes, letters, e-mails and calls; and

vi. Be wary of get-rich-quick offers. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it is probably a scam.

More details of other scam tactics and the relevant crime prevention advisories can be found at the Singapore Police Force website at www.spf.gov.sg or the Commercial Affairs Department website at www.cad.gov.sg.