Commentary: We shouldn’t need the police to persuade us that we are being scammed

SINGAPORE: We all know of people who insist they are too savvy to be scammed. Sometimes, we ourselves may even believe that scammers only target the gullible or the greedy, and that we would never fall for scam tactics. We see scam emails in our inboxes and think: “Who on earth would fall for such a ruse?”
However, despite growing awareness, scams continue to be an ever-worsening problem, with victims losing S$385.6 million (US$295.8 million) in the first half of this year – a 24.6 per cent increase over the same period last year.
As scams continue to surge, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is considering giving the police powers to order banks to temporarily restrict the transactions of potential victims, especially if these victims refuse to believe they are being scammed. The public consultation on the Protection from Scams Bill seeking public feedback on the proposed measures closed at the end of September.
Is this measure necessary? Or is a restriction order preventing a potential victim from freely using his own funds too drastic?
To what extent do we need the police to protect us from ourselves?
These restriction orders are intended to support the police’s ongoing proactive interventions with potential victims, by giving the police time to convince the victims that they are being scammed.
According to the Singapore Police Force’s Mid-Year Crime Brief, banks had referred more than 140 suspicious attempted monetary transfers to the police in the first half of the year, enabling timely intervention that averted S$36.5 million of potential losses.
While scams are targeted at individuals, it often has societal impact. Take the elderly for example. While they represent one of the smallest groups of scam victims, they have the highest average amount lost compared to the other demographics.
A retiree who loses his life savings through a love scam, for example, becomes dependent on family members, friends, and social welfare organisations to care for his needs. It may also strain relationships and cause anxiety and shame to the victims.
Giving the police the power to block potential victims from using their own bank accounts poses the obvious risk of police overreach, which must be balanced with the potential benefits in better preventing scams from taking place.
To understand the risk, it is important to first understand how and when police powers may be exercised.
The police typically receive information from the public through various channels such as 999 calls or reports filed online or at a Neighbourhood Police Centre. In relation to scams and money laundering, the police also receive suspicious transaction reports from individuals or financial institutions such as banks or payment services providers when a transaction is suspected to be connected to criminal activity.
If the police have reason to suspect that an offence has been committed, they will then commence investigations into the allegations. It is also at this point when investigations commence that the police become authorised to exercise powers under the Criminal Procedure Code.
When any property, including bank accounts, are suspected to be proceeds of crime, or used to commit or facilitate an offence, or constitutes evidence of an offence, the police may then seize or prohibit the disposal of that property in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code.
Therefore, for the police to arrive at a reasonable suspicion that certain properties are (or will be) the proceeds of crime, and that police powers to restrict the movement of those assets ought to be exercised, they must have had sufficient evidence through its preliminary investigations to reach this conclusion. This requires time.
However, where scam prevention is concerned, the police may be required to decide on whether to issue a restriction order before any investigations can take place, sometimes without even first speaking to the potential victim. Where the speed of decision-making increases, the potential risk of making an inaccurate assessment also increases.
Inaccurate decisions may lead to significant inconveniences and unintended consequences for the “victim” as he would not be able to use his funds as needed.
While such inconveniences may be considered “acceptable” in the public’s mind if it relates to a suspect, tolerance for inaccurate decisions would be much lower if it relates to a potential “victim’s” funds.
Similar issues arose when the MHA proposed to expand police powers to apprehend people with mental health conditions if the police has a “reasonable belief” that danger to the mentally disordered person or to the people around him was “reasonably likely to occur”.
Such decisions are made on the spot, which leads to the possibility of judgment errors by the police. This led to concerns that people with mental health conditions may be wrongly apprehended, thereby traumatising them and deepening the stigma that they face.
Ultimately, as 86 per cent of total reported scams involve self-effected transfers, personal responsibility is the best way to prevent being duped. This includes keeping up to date with latest scam tactics, and being vigilant over too-good-to-be-true online deals.
Such an approach is already being in the process of being implemented for phishing-related scams.
The proposed Shared Responsibility Framework sets out the various roles that financial institutions, telcos and individuals play in ensuring that people do not fall prey to phishing scams. Victims of phishing scams may only claim their losses from the financial institution or the telco if either of them fail in their duties under the framework. If their duties are complied with, the individual will then bear full responsibility for his own losses.
Similar principles ought to apply for self-effected transfers. We shouldn’t need the police to persuade us that we are being scammed, much less to issue restriction orders on our bank accounts if we cannot be persuaded.
With extensive public awareness campaigns and other proactive measures to combat scams, the responsibility for self-effected transfers must ultimately rest on the individuals themselves.
If a potential victim cannot be persuaded by the police to stop a particular transaction, that victim ought to have no complaints if he is eventually scammed.
After a while, there comes a point where police intervention must cease, and personal responsibility must take over. The million-dollar question is: Where should this line be drawn?
Mark Yeo is a Director at Fortress Law Corporation. He was formerly a Deputy Public Prosecutor with the Attorney-General’s Chambers.