SINGAPORE – As the year-end sales season approaches, online shoppers will need to guard against a surge in parcel delivery phishing scams, which may involve scammers posing as SingPost.

At least 631 such scams have been reported since January 2024, with victims losing at least $1.1 million, police said in a Nov. 22 advisory.

Of these, at least 505 involved the impersonation of SingPost, with a loss of at least $955,000.

Police have advised people to remain vigilant against such scams by waiting for delivery after major online shopping events, such as Singles’ Day, Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, 12.12 or sales. Christmas.

With such scams, victims would receive a message about the failure of a package to be delivered to their address asking them to click on a link to a website.

Those who click the link to confirm their address will be taken to a phishing site asking them to enter their credit card details. This allows fraudsters to make unauthorized purchases using the victim’s credit card details.

Victims only realize they have been scammed after noticing unauthorized transactions on their cards or bank statements.

In its notice, the police reminded the public that Singapore Post’s SMS sender ID is SingPost.

They added that payments to the postal service provider will not be made through an online link. SingPost will also never ask for personal or banking information via SMS.

“If SingPost is unable to deliver an item, members of the public will receive a physical non-delivery notice to collect the item from a post office or POPStation,” police said.

To avoid falling for such scams, police urged people to use the ScamShield app and set security features, such as transaction limits for their debit and credit cards.

They can also enable two- and multi-factor authentication for their bank accounts and e-wallets.