{"id":86797,"date":"2026-09-22T00:21:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=86797"},"modified":"2026-09-22T00:21:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T16:21:02","slug":"at-least-s4-8-million-lost-to-scams-involving-fake-harvey-norman-staff-since-january","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=86797","title":{"rendered":"At least S$4.8 million lost to scams involving fake Harvey Norman staff since January"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>SINGAPORE: Police have warned of a surge in scams involving fraudsters posing as Harvey Norman employees, with at least 119 cases reported this year.<\/p>\n<p>The scams have resulted in losses of at least S$4.8 million (US$3.8 million) since January, police said on Monday (Sep 21).<\/p>\n<p>Victims would receive unsolicited calls from scammers pretending to be Harvey Norman staff, claiming the victims had bought a television set or had a pending delivery confirmation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When the victims denied making the purchase, the scammers would say that their personal details had been misused and that further investigations were needed.<\/p>\n<p>The victims would then be transferred to another scammer pretending to be a Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) officer, who would accuse them of being involved in criminal activities like money laundering.<\/p>\n<p>To facilitate the purported investigations, victims would be instructed to transfer money to a &#8220;safe account&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, they were told to withdraw cash, buy gold bars or bring valuables such as jewellery and luxury watches to hand over to unknown individuals for &#8220;investigation purposes&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Victims were assured that their money and valuables would be returned after the &#8220;investigations&#8221; were completed, only to realise later that they had been scammed after making multiple money transfers without receiving the refunds they were promised.<\/p>\n<p>The police reiterated that Singapore government officials will never ask members of the public to transfer or hand over cash or valuables, or disclose their banking login details.<\/p>\n<p>Government officials will also never ask them to install mobile apps from unverified app stores or transfer their call to the police and other government officials.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the public are encouraged to take precautionary measures, including using the ScamShield app to guard against scam calls and SMSes.<\/p>\n<p>Those in doubt can also call the 24\/7 ScamShield helpline at 1799.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/singapore\/impersonation-scams-harvey-norman-mas-police-6400051\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE: Police have warned of a surge in scams involving fraudsters posing as Harvey Norman employees, with at least 119 cases reported this year. The&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--oFjWmSEL--\/c_crop,h_704,w_1253,x_1,y_0\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/09\/21\/istock-2221352760.jpg?itok=ARGiuLjg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2538,23412,2393,1274,4883,787,20496,30395,4880,339],"class_list":["post-86797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-fake","tag-harvey","tag-involving","tag-january","tag-lost","tag-million","tag-norman","tag-s4-8","tag-scams","tag-staff","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/86798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}