SINGAPORE — One property buyer lost a “substantial amount”, another almost lost S$300,000 after falling prey to scammers who pretended to be lawyers executing their transactions.

In the wake of the two scams that happened within the last month, the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) is advising members of the public to be cautious when they receive emails from their law firms asking them to transfer money.

Both cases (see details below) involved conveyancing law firms and property transactions, Senior Counsel Gregory Vijayendran, the society’s president, said during a media briefing on Friday (May 24).

The scammers had assumed the identity of either the client or the firm, and tricked clients by using fake email addresses that were deceptively similar to the real ones.

This was “a kind of phishing”, Mr Vijayendran added. Phishing attacks mainly use fraudulent methods, such as the spoofing of Internet addresses and emails, to obtain sensitive information.

LawSoc declined to name the firms for confidentiality purposes.

It is especially concerned about first-time or foreign buyers who may not be familiar with the processes. Lawyers should explain the conveyancing process and timelines to such clients, LawSoc said.

The society has also advised its members to clearly communicate payment instructions to clients who are not IT-savvy, such as senior citizens.

While LawSoc is not aware of other instances of such scams among other firms or involving other types of legal transactions here, Mr Vijayendran noted that similar types of impersonation email fraud have been popping up in legal practices overseas, such as the United Kingdom.

FIRST CASE 

• The solicitor posted his client a letter asking for payment of 25 per cent of the purchase price, when the Temporary Occupation Permit was issued.

• The client received this letter in the post, but not the email containing the soft copy of the letter as a scammer had hacked into her account and taken control of it.

• The client then posted the cheque to her lawyer.

• The scammer then began posing as the lawyer by adding an underscore in the solicitor’s name and adding two extra letters to the email address’ domain name. The scammer emailed the client to say that the developers would not accept payment by cheque, and that she had to send the funds by telegraphic transfer to the developers’ bank account.

• When the client called the lawyer to clarify this, he told her that he had not sent any such email.

• Nevertheless, feeling pressured by the scammer’s email reminder, the client went ahead and transferred the funds to the bank account the scammer gave her.

• She emailed her solicitor a scanned copy of the transfer form, which the scammer did not intercept.

• When the solicitor looked at the form, he called his client to tell her to stop the payment immediately. She was able to do so and did not lose any money.

SECOND CASE

• The law firm sent its client an email asking him to pay the balance in a property transaction through a cashier’s order. The firm also sent a letter to the client’s address.

• The client emailed back agreeing to buy the cashier’s order on the Friday before the completion date, which fell on a Tuesday.

• A scammer then hacked into the client’s email account, impersonated the lawyer and sent the client emails informing him to do a telegraphic transfer instead.

• When the firm called the client on Tuesday to ask when he would come by to give them the cashier’s order, he was shocked. He had already transferred the funds to a Bank of China account in Hong Kong, as instructed by the scammer.

• The scammer had bought a domain name very similar to the firm’s name, by replacing a hyphen with a full stop.

• The scammer also impersonated the client and sent emails to the law firm by, again, changing the email address slightly.

• The client lost a “substantial amount of money”, though LawSoc did not wish to reveal the actual sum.

• Both the law firm and the client have made police reports.