The Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) has warned the public not to fall for scams in which con artists send short messages (SMS) claiming that they may now receive the 10,000 baht subsidy through the “digital wallet” system and should get in touch with authorities.
Today (Thursday), Pol Col Krisana Pattanacharoen, a spokesperson for the CCIB, advised those who receive such texts to simply disregard them.
The “digital wallet” program is a Pheu Thai party initiative designed to boost the economy by distributing a one-time subsidy of 10,000 baht to all Thai citizens aged 16 and over who have digital wallets. The grant must be used within six months to purchase food and other necessities from shops within a 4-kilometer radius of the recipient’s residence or place of stay.
However, the program has not yet been introduced.
He revealed that while the SMSs can take many different forms, they typically concern financial gains. For example, messages from a fictitious postal service informing recipients that they can seek compensation for damaged packages addressed to them, messages from the Provincial Electricity Authority or the Metropolitan Electricity Authority informing recipients that they can now seek a refund of the costs associated with the installation of electricity meters, and messages from the Land Department alerting recipients that they can claim compensation for damages to parcels addressed to them are just a few examples.
Krisana provided guidance for those who get such messages:
Avoid clicking the links included in the SMS.
Avoid clicking on URLs that direct you to the installation of programs since they can contain malware.
Calls requesting your name and other personal information from unknown phone numbers purporting to be from state authorities shouldn’t be returned.
When adding friends to Line accounts, exercise caution.
Use the Play Store or App Store to install apps alone.
It is advised to immediately force a factory reset of your device, delete any SIM cards, or turn off the Wi-Fi router if you have loaded a bogus program.
According to Krisana, users who were tricked into installing bogus programs have reported more than 9,400 complaints, resulting in financial losses that are expected to total nearly 820 million baht, between March 1 and August 19.
READ MORE https://pattayaone.news/crime/
