SINGAPORE – The latest OCBC Financial institution SMS scams through which practically 470 clients misplaced not less than $8.5 million in December final yr have raised questions on how the rip-off scourge will be handled to guard shoppers.
Many victims of the most recent scams had been fooled as a result of the pretend SMSes had been grouped in the identical SMS thread with real ones despatched beforehand by OCBC for one-time passwords (OTPs) and transaction alerts. The SMS sender identify “OCBC” was spoofed by scammers, who lured victims to click on on fraudulent hyperlinks to entry a pretend banking web site.