Police warn of scams involving SMS threats to burn down home

If you receive an SMS message threatening to burn down your premises unless you pay a ransom, do not panic.

It is most likely a scam, the police said in a public alert yesterday.

About 70 reports have been made by would-be victims who received threatening messages in this variant of SMS scams.

The messages instruct them to transfer money to a designated bank account or risk their premises being set on fire.

No monetary loss from such scams has been reported, the police said in a statement.

They advise people who receive such messages to remain calm and to ignore the instruction to transfer money.

They should also block and report the phone number as spam.

For urgent police assistance, call 999.

Anyone with information related to such cases can call the police hotline on 1800-255-0000, or go online to www.police.gov.sg/iwitness

To seek scam-related advice, the public can call the anti-scam helpline on 1800-722-6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg

To join the Let's Fight Scams campaign, go to www.scamalert.sg/fight and sign up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with friends and family.

This article was first published in The New Paper. Permission required for reproduction.