A 71-year-old ah pek lost S$45,000 when cybercriminals stole his bank credit card details by means of a rogue computer application.
The retiree saw a pop-up notice on his computer saying that the PC was running at a slow speed.
The notice was actually an online advertisement for a programme that promised to clean up the computer hard disk so that it could run faster.
However, this programme is suspected by police to be a phishing app which led to theft of information related to his credit cards.
He only found out two weeks later – on 31 January this year – after a bank officer called him to inform of 47 suspicious transactions which took place in the wee hours of the night.
The crooks transferred amounts of up to S$1000 each time from one of his accounts, and made off with S$37,000.
Another 27 fraudulent transactions also resulted in S$8000 transferred out of his 2 other bank accounts.
The ah pek, who works part-time as a supervisor in the industrial management field, has filed a dispute with the Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre in hopes of receiving some compensation from the bank regarding the incident.
He hopes that what happened to him will serve as a reminder to others to wary when downloading computer applications online.
