Singapore Scam Cases Continue to Climb

Despite widespread reporting, scam cases in Singapore continue to rise. This disturbing trend was highlighted in recent news reports, and total losses for the first half of 2023 has already exceeded S$330 million. Worryingly, scam victims have been trending younger, not older. Young adults aged 20 to 39 made up more than half of all scam cases reported this year. They mostly fell victim to e-commerce scams, job scams and phishing scams – mainly conducted over digital messaging, social media platforms, e-commerce, phone calls and SMSes. The occurrences of online scams and cybercrimes are intensifying. There were a total of 24,525 cases in the first half of 2023, up from 14,481 cases in the same period in 2022 – an increase of 70%. The police also highlighted the emergence of a new type of Android malware scam, in which...