The Judiciary Police (PJ) has again received reports of smishing through false consumer bonus point expiry notifications. A member of the public recently received a text message from an unknown sender, claiming that the bonus points in his account on a consumer platform would soon expire. He should click the embedded link in the text message to redeem rewards. Upon doing so, the victim reached a phishing website where he was required to enter his personal information and credit card details. To redeem rewards, the victim had to enter a one-time verification code to complete a credit card transaction. The following day, the victim discovered someone had linked his credit card to a mobile payment app and had conducted multiple large-sum transactions.

PJ reminds the public to check the authenticity of SMS messages with embedded links. They should also carefully examine the subject and contents of the one-time verification messages they receive during online credit card transactions to prevent from being scammed.