A man has warned others about an elaborate scam after receiving what appeared to be Apple password reset alerts, followed by a phone call from someone claiming to be from Apple Support.
Facebook user Jem Chua shared his experience in a post recently, saying he received password reset notifications on both his iPhone and Apple Watch.
As he had not requested a password reset, Chua rejected the requests.
Shortly afterwards, he received an automated phone call asking him to press "1" if he had not attempted to reset his password.
After he did so, the automated message told him that a customer service agent would call to verify his details.
About two minutes later, Chua received a call from a California number.
The caller claimed to be from Apple Customer Support and told him that Apple's servers had detected an attempt to reset his password.
According to Chua, the caller claimed the attempt had originated from Russia and accurately identified that he was in Singapore.
The caller also allegedly told Chua that the call was being recorded for training and service quality purposes, making the call appear legitimate.
Chua said the caller directed him to open his web browser and log into Apple's support website, where he would supposedly be guided through the process of blocking the device responsible for the attempted reset.
"At this point in time, I started to sense something fishy...this is not normal process," Chua said.
Chua said he had already opened the official Apple support website when the caller told him to instead visit another URL, "sg-apple.com".
The caller then allegedly instructed him to enter an access code on the website.
Chua stopped before keying in any information and confronted the caller, telling him that he knew it was a scam.
The caller immediately hung up.
The following day (Aug 16), Chua posted an update saying he had returned to check the website he was directed to during the call and found that the site was no longer accessible.
Chua said he had not reported the website himself but learnt through comments and direct messages that some people had already flagged it after reading his original post.
"My own [public service announcement] led to another learning opportunity for me and I'm glad I learnt something new."
AsiaOne reached out to Jem Chua for more information.
[[nid:745429]]
