Fionice Teoh, an assistant service manager at the DBS branch at Century Square, was shouted at by an elderly scam victim who wanted to withdraw S$190,000 in cash. - Photo: DBS BANK
SINGAPORE: Less than two weeks before she gave birth, Fionice Teoh, a DBS assistant service manager at the bank’s Century Square branch, served a woman in her 70s who looked agitated.
She had gone there on the afternoon of Dec 24, 2024, demanding to withdraw S$190,000 in cash.
As customers looked on, she shouted: “This is my money, how can you control and not let me withdraw? If you don’t let me withdraw everything, I’ll close all my accounts.”
But the bank refused, as it suspected that she was a scam victim.
Teoh, 31, was 38 weeks pregnant and on one of her final shifts before her maternity leave began.
The woman verbally abused her for almost two hours.
Teoh said: “I kept reminding myself to stay calm. It would have been easier to just let her withdraw everything.
“But my job isn’t just about transactions. It’s about protecting people, especially those who are most vulnerable.”
The woman initially claimed the money was for festive shopping, before saying it was for an investment. She also asked for her money to be given in cash.
She was on the phone the whole time, and was being coached by a scammer on what to tell bank staff.
The signs of a scam were all there, and Teoh alerted the bank’s anti-scam team.
She said: “She got defensive and asked why we were asking so many questions. She did not want to look me in the eye, and kept looking at her phone instead.”
Teoh suggested that the woman return the next day. This was to buy time for the bank’s anti-scam team and the authorities to contact her.
It took two hours of convincing before the woman finally left.
Deputy Superintendent Benedict Ng from the police’s Anti-Scam Centre visited the woman’s home that night. He discovered that she had previously withdrawn $12,000 from another branch, and was about to hand the cash over to the scammers.
DSP Ng said: “The scammers who contacted her claimed to be banking personnel and law enforcement officers, and convinced her they needed to examine her cash as part of a money laundering investigation.”
She thought DSP Ng was a scammer, and she had been reporting her whereabouts to the criminals three times daily over three days. They had claimed her family members would be implicated if she did not cooperate with them.
DSP Ng said it took him about an hour to convince the anxious woman, who was relieved after she realised it was a scam.
Teoh and DSP Ng helped the woman avoid losing over $200,000 of her life savings.
Several days later, the woman returned to the bank branch with a bag of chocolates to thank them.
Teoh, who gave birth to a baby girl on Jan 5, said: “Victims don’t usually come back to thank us. We understand, because to some, it may be shameful to admit they fell for a scam.”
Victims in Singapore have lost about $4 billion to scams since 2020.
In 2024, there were 1,504 cases of government official impersonation scams reported, with victims losing $151.3 million.
Laws were recently passed here to cane scammers, with a maximum of 24 strokes depending on the severity of the offence.
A DBS spokesperson said: “We continue to fine-tune our safeguards to strike a balance between protecting our customers and ensuring their banking experience remains seamless. We will keep strengthening our defences and enhancing our security tools to empower customers to bank safely and with confidence.”
Members of the public should add security features like the ScamShield app to help them identify potential scam messages and calls, and install antivirus apps to protect their devices against malware.
They should also verify a caller’s or sender’s identity directly with the organisation they claim to be from.
Scam victims should lodge a police report and inform the relevant financial institutions.
When in doubt, call the 24/7 ScamShield helpline on 1799.
DSP Ng said: “Every day, I witness how scams devastate not just bank accounts, but confidence, and destroy relationships.
“That is why every successful intervention we make means a family keeps their savings, or someone’s future remains secure.” - The Straits Times/ANN
