Poly students' e-mails compromised; MOE, IHLs warn against scammers

Several compromised e-mail addresses of Temasek Polytechnic (TP) students have been used by scammers, with the Ministry of Education (MOE) and institutes of higher learning (IHLs) cautioning parents and students not to respond to e-mails for tuition fee payments.

- Aqil Hamzah and Daniel Lai

The police also urged vigilance, and said on Aug 23 that there were at least 16 cases of this new scam variant reported in August, with losses totalling at least $38,000.

A TP student, Ms Afiqah, said she received one such scam e-mail on Aug 21 at about 2pm.

The e-mail—which was not addressed to Ms Afiqah specifically—claimed she had not paid tuition fees amounting to $2,850 despite purportedly being sent a previous reminder. The e-mail then stated that failure to pay before the deadline would mean "we will have to forward your file to our litigation department".

She was instructed to settle the payment via a bank transfer to a DBS account number. Proof of payment would then have to be sent to a separate e-mail address that ended with "temasekpolytechnic.online".

"Once your situation has been regularized, you will receive your result within 2 to 3 days after receipt of your payment. It will therefore not be necessary to contact us again," the e-mail said.

Students with financial difficulties were invited in the e-mail to "submit a request for financial assistance to the Social Service", but no contact information was given.

The "Social Service" will analyse such requests "in complete confidentiality", it added.

In the e-mail, Ms Afiqah was directed to another scam e-mail address—which also ended with "temasekpolytechnic.online"—if she required any clarification.