'I won't let you contact DBS': S'pore man, 66, has phone remotely accessed after receiving message of S$50,000 transaction - Mothership

His wife had signed him up for a fitness class after coming across an ad on Facebook.

After being led to download a mobile application he thought was for an exercise class, an elderly man received a message from "DBS" notifying him about a suspicious S$50,000 transaction.

As he and his family were calling DBS to verify the message, the phone was accessed and locked remotely.

A message was then left on a black screen, which read, “I won't let you contact DBS and fraud team."

Speaking to Mothership, the man’s daughter, Nicole, shared that the purported hacking took place on Sep. 22 at around 7pm.

In the lead-up to that, her mum, 60, had come across a video advert on Facebook for an elderly aerobics class.

In her posts on Threads, Nicole wrote that her mum “still cannot distinguish between real and AI”.

After seeing the post, her mum sent in her dad’s phone number via the advert.

Afterwards, a staff from the purported aerobics class phoned Nicole’s dad and said they could help sign him up.

“She did sound foreign so my dad did ask if she was. She denied and said she was Singaporean,” Nicole wrote on Threads.

However, he proceeded as he was told about the class by Nicole's mum.

The woman on the call then guided her dad to download an app named “Water Fitness”.

According to her dad, the app was downloaded from the Android app store, Nicole shared.

However, apart from downloading the app, the woman on the call also got him to change some of the settings on his phone.

“This is how I think she got into his phone,” Nicole guessed.

Nicole shared that after the setting changes were made, the phone started going “bonkers” and overheating.

According to images shared by Nicole, the application had access to the phone's camera and microphone, among others.

Afterwards, her dad went about his day and later visited Nicole’s place, where he informed her about a message, purportedly from DBS.

The message was from an alleged fraud department notifying them about a suspicious transaction involving S$50,000.

This was when they realised something was amiss.

Using her own phone, Nicole called DBS to verify the message and alleged transaction.

It was during this call when her dad’s phone appeared to be remotely taken over.

“The green light came on and the message was shown on the screen,” Nicole recalled.

According to Samsung's website, a green dot in the notification bar indicates that an application is accessing the phone’s camera and microphone.

"I wont let you contact DBS and fraud team.”

“That’s when I quickly shut the phone off and placed it face down elsewhere,” Nicole shared.

The family proceeded to call the banks to see if there were any unauthorised transactions made.

They also visited DBS to secure her dad’s account.

No money was taken from the accounts, Nicole shared.

His SIM card has since been replaced, and the phone has been wiped.

As they were resetting the phone, Nicole said they found additional mobile applications that were not installed by her dad.

Nicole acknowledged that the phone might still contain malware, and they are considering replacing the phone entirely.

The episode has left Nicole’s dad “very sad and frustrated”.

“He doesn’t dare to use his phone much and wants to do everything traditionally,” Nicole said.

Nicole said she has counselled her parents, telling them that they need to learn from what happened.

“I’ve taught them to use Trustpilot to check the validity of a site,” she pointed out.

Trustpilot is a platform on which reviews for businesses and organisations can be written.

She also said she has warned her mother about AI content sites.

Nicole’s post on Threads has gotten over 2,100 likes and 1,000 shares.

“I initially shared because I wanted to get help. I was very flustered and scared and didn’t want to do anything wrongly,” she told Mothership.

“I’m so used to seeing scam awareness posts. I didn’t think this was possible,” she commented.

She added that the close call occurred even though she and her sister had been careful in helping their parents.

“So I wanted to also share what happened to raise awareness to other people… This is real and happened so fast - within a day,” Nicole said.

Nicole also highlighted the dangers of being unable to differentiate between AI and authentic posts, particularly among the elderly.

Responding to Mothership's queries, the Singapore Police Force confirmed that a report was lodged and that they are looking into the matter.