A netizen, with the moniker Yanfeng Lee, voiced out his disappointment at DBS bank as it failed to provide notifications of fraudulent transactions that were made on his corporate credit card in April, claiming that the unauthorized transactions had cost him S$4,000.
Mr Lee shared on Facebook on Wednesday (23 Sept) that a transaction listed under “Apple Online Store”, which amounted to S$4,000, has been made on his corporate credit card without his knowledge or consent.
He claimed that DBS did not send any notification via text message, nor OTP to him before the transaction took place.
OTP is a “One-Time Password” issued by banks to the user’s registered mobile number or email address for validation of the transaction.
“Due to the stay-home period, I didn’t return to my office and did not get a chance to check my printed bank statement,” Mr Lee wrote. “As soon as I found out, I called DBS to notify them.”
He was informed by DBS that “they couldn’t do anything about it” and is unable to provide any information pertained to the transaction.
Instead, the bank suggested calling the merchant, Apple, as the transaction was listed under the company’s name.
“I called Apple, and after escalating through many managers. They told me they didn’t have my credit card on file, meaning the fraudsters were using ‘Apple Online Store’ as a spoof. No transaction was made to them.”
Following his discovery, Mr Lee went on to call DBS for the second time. But the bank said it cannot do anything as it has passed 60 days since the transaction.
“I escalated the matter through a few Customer service people and was repeatedly told that there was nothing that could be done,” he noted.
But Mr Lee did not stop there, he called the bank manager on Wednesday and asked whether the bank had failed to “secure” his money.
“Their response? No, there are security measures in place. They cannot control merchant otp measures.
“How is it secure if they will allow fraudsters to take money from my account without otp or notification?” he added.
In light of the incident, Mr Lee has decided to move to another bank and beseeched other users to do so as well.
“This is bad business and you [DBS] are a bad bank,” he remarked.
DBS’ response: Customer has acknowledged that the transactions were legitimate
DBS commented on Mr Lee’s Facebook post, saying that it can only raise a dispute to the card associations on a specified timeframe and requested to have “another review” on Mr Lee’s case.
“Sorry to hear about this transaction, Yanfeng. We seek your kind understanding that the bank may only raise a dispute to the card associations on a stipulated timeframe. We encourage our cardholders to review their transactions on a timely basis so the bank can step in immediately and help customers should any dispute arises,” said the bank.
It continued, “Allow us to have another review on this matter.”
The customer concerned has acknowledged that the transactions were legitimate.
Netizens shared they encountered similar incidents to Lee Yanfeng’s case
Turns out, Mr Lee was not the only user who had encountered a fraudulent transaction.
One netizen penned in the comment section of Mr Lee’s post, noting that DBS had failed to secure the life savings of her “aged mother”, adding that another DBS’ customer had lost S$45,000 in March due to the “serious glitches” in the bank’s system.
She explained that her mother was scammed in January and reported the case to DBS. The bank had promised to follow up within 45 days, but it never called since then.
Meanwhile, one netizen shared that her father had experienced a similar incident as to Mr Lee’s case, but with UOB. She noted that the transaction was listed under “Apple.co.sg”, adding that her father received a refund from the bank as it was declared as an “unauthorised transaction”.
She added that her father received an OTP from UOB when another fraudulent transaction was about to be made.
Another user of UOB shared that she lost over S$4,000 due to the “multiple iTunes charges” that were made to her card within three weeks. She quickly called UOB to inform about the unauthorised transactions and all the charges were reversed back to her account after almost a month of investigations.
One netizen commented that she was also called by the UOB when the bank noticed “a few iTunes transactions amounting to S$700” was made to her card.
However, one netizen pointed out that DBS bank managed to make a refund over fraudulent transactions that she encountered. She recounts when a S$600 of transaction was made to her account due to her son’s carelessness in using iTunes, DBS refunded the money to her account.
