SINGAPORE: Singapore Customs warned on Wednesday (Dec 3) of two new parcel scam variants that have surfaced in recent months.
The variants involve scammers impersonating Customs or its officers to deceive victims into making payments or revealing banking details.
In the first variant, scammers impersonating Singapore Customs would send an email to a victim from a Gmail account, informing them that a parcel of theirs was being withheld for compliance reasons.
A fake inspection notice would accompany the email, requesting that the recipient be present for an on-site inspection of goods scheduled for a few days from the date of the email.
The notice would be falsely attributed to a member of Customs’ senior management.
The recipient would then be offered an alternative to physically attending the inspection. This was to pay a “verification fee” to a Malaysian bank account with a promise that the parcel would be released following payment, and that a full refund would be issued afterwards.
