SINGAPORE: OCBC Bank clients who had been scammed have felt nice ache, with some dropping life financial savings that they’d constructed up for his or her youngsters and households painstakingly over time.
OCBC mentioned its banking programs haven’t been hacked and stay safe. It additionally reversed its plan to part out bodily tokens for e-banking.
In a letter to The Straits Times’ Forum web page, ST reader Siti Raudhah Mohd Ali mentioned she lost S$100,000 (RM310,407) in just a few minutes.
The mom of seven youngsters and spouse of an educator, she mentioned in the letter that the incident occurred on Dec 28 final yr when she acquired an SMS that gave the impression to be from OCBC asking her to click on on a hyperlink to stop her from being locked out of her checking account.
She adopted the hyperlink and was despatched to a web page that appeared very like OCBC’s precise Internet banking web page. She then keyed in her particulars together with her person identify and password.
Scammers elevated her switch restrict to S$100,000 (RM310,407) and transferred that quantity out of her account and her youngsters’s financial savings accounts.
Her name to OCBC’s hotline was routed to an automatic menu for “a very long time” earlier than reaching a individual, she mentioned.
Another OCBC person, John Paul Tan, mentioned on Facebook that his spouse clicked on a hyperlink in the message purporting to be from OCBC, claiming that somebody was attempting to entry her account.
Later in the day, Tan realised that 5 abroad transactions had been made which wiped out his life financial savings.
He mentioned: “We called the bank together. They told us that they would try their best to get it back in nine days, but the money was gone and chances were slim.”
Eventually, the financial institution may retrieve the cash for 2 of the 5 transactions.
OCBC’s cellular app now carries a safety advisory saying: “Beware of SMSes claiming to be from OCBC. Our SMSes will never contain links asking you to click on them.” – The Straits Times (Singapore)/Asia News Network
