The Police would like to alert members of the public to a new variant of scams involving the recruitment of Apple iOS “game testers” which has been reported overseas.
In these cases, the scammers would use Facebook and other social media platforms to recruit unsuspecting victims with the promise of lucrative payments in exchange for taking up the job offer which involves “playing games”. The scammers would then request the victims to log in to an Apple ID account on their iPhone using a specified name and password, before activating the “Lost Mode” in the “Find My iPhone” function, which would cause the victims’ iPhone to be locked. Thereafter, the scammers would extort money from the victims, and promise the victims that they will regain the control of their phone after the money is paid.
Members of the public are advised to adopt the following crime prevention measures:
- Do not log in to your Apple account using your iPhone with Apple IDs provided by unknown individuals;
- Do not transfer money or give out your personal information, credit/debit card details and bank account details to unknown individuals; and
- In the event that your iPhone has been locked by a scammer, please seek Apple Support at https://getsupport.apple.com.
If you wish to provide any information related to such scams, please call the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit it online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. If you require urgent Police assistance, please dial ‘999’.
To seek scam-related advice, you may call the anti-scam helpline at 1800-722-6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg. Join the ‘let’s fight scams’ campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with your family and friends. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from becoming the next victim.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
19 July 2019 @ 11:00 AM