Scammers now acting as children of S'pore parents on WhatsApp to ask for course funds, at least S$18,000 lost in a month
Scammers impersonated students to deceive their parents.
In a recent social media scam, fraudsters have been using compromised WhatsApp accounts to impersonate Singaporean students in order to solicit payment for fake youth exchange programmes and AI-related courses. The Singapore Police Force (SPF) reported eight such incidents since September 2026, resulting in losses of at least S$18,000.
In these scams, scammers gain access to the students' WhatsApp accounts and pose as the students themselves. They reach out to the students' parents, claiming they have been accepted into the programmes and requesting payment to secure a place. To make their claims more convincing, the scammers provide fake consent forms with various institutions and agencies' names and logos.
Some victims were told that the fees are subsidized and will be refunded, while others were instructed to make payments via a PayNow QR code. In some cases, scammers also demanded additional payments, claiming that the initial payment had been processed incorrectly and would be refunded soon. The victims only discovered they had been scammed after verifying the requests with their children or receiving alerts from their banks.
The SPF issued an advisory on September 28 to warn the public about this scam variant. They recommended taking precautionary measures such as enabling two-step verification on WhatsApp and checking for scam signs through official sources like the ScamShield Helpline (1799). If suspected scam victims encounter any fraudulent transactions, they should contact their bank immediately and file a police report.
Written by urgent.news from Mothership's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
