Singapore Customs warns public against falling for SMS impersonation scam

SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): Singapore Customs has warned the public against falling for an impersonation scam bearing the agency’s name.

In a Facebook post on Sept 13, the agency said there has been a circulating SMS that falsely claims to be from Singapore Customs by identifying itself as “S.G. Customs”.

Singapore Customs clarified that it does not use “SGCustoms” or any other variation as part of its corporate identity or on social media platforms.

The agency added: “Since July 1, the public can expect SMSes from government agencies to come from a single ‘gov.sg’ SMS sender ID, instead of individual government agencies’ sender IDs.”

It said the SMS that has been going around also carries a suspicious link meant to deceive people into revealing their personal information so that their “detained parcels” can be released.

The agency said it does not send text messages seeking recipients’ information in exchange for the release of goods.

“We take a serious view of such incidents as they undermine public trust in Singapore Customs. We urge the public to be vigilant against such scams,” it added.

The Customs authority advised people not to follow the instructions in such SMSes and to refrain from making any monetary payments if they are unable to verify that the sender is indeed a Singapore Customs official.

People should not open any link in the SMS or similar messages on other digital platforms as the content may be malicious.

People should also not provide their name, NRIC number, passport details, contact details, bank account or credit card details, or other personal details to the sender.

As part of a new measure to make identifying authentic government text messages easier, more than nine million government SMSes have been sent to the public using the “gov.sg” sender ID since June 18.

The measure, developed by GovTech’s independent Open Government Products division, streamlines virtually all SMSes sent by the Singapore Government under a single sender ID to protect people here against government-official impersonation scams.

Those in doubt about SMSes claiming to be from Singapore Customs can contact the agency at [email protected]

For more information on gov.sg SMSes, visit https://www.sms.gov.sg – The Straits Times/ANN