The police alerted members of the public to be cautious of impersonation scams involving callers posing as employees from Apple and Google.
According to the police, it had received at least eight reports related to the scams between 13 and 20 December with at least $15,700 cheated.
The police said in a press release on Saturday (22 December) that a convenience store’s staff was reported to have received calls from unknown callers claiming to be employees from Apple’s iTunes and / or Google Play in this variant.
These callers then purportedly claimed to have received numerous complaints from customers who were unable to retrieve the monetary values from their purchased Google Play and iTunes gift cards. Thus, as part of their investigations, these callers requested for the activation numbers for both types of cards on the pretext of checking their validity.
The staff then provided the activation numbers of several cards. The callers then told the staff that they will get back after updating their main office of the findings. However, no further calls were received.
The Police advised retailers to be cautious when receiving unsolicited calls from unknown persons, even if they claim to be the staff of your suppliers, verify the authenticity of the calls by contact your supplier on their previously known phone numbers, instead of the numbers provided by the callers if in doubt, and educate employees on this scam.
