Singapore tribunal puts S$3,455 phishing loss on scam victim
Why it matters: The ruling found gross negligence after he ignored repeated bank SMS alerts before 22 Apple Pay charges in Japan.
A Singapore Small Claims Tribunal dismissed a man’s bid to recover about S$3,455 from his bank after a card phishing scam, ruling that he bore the loss because he ignored multiple warning messages. The man lost S$3,811.72 in total and recovered only S$355. Tribunal Magistrate Joel Tan said the victim’s “sustained course of omissions” amounted to gross negligence. The judgment said the man clicked a TikTok ad and his credit card was added to an Apple device on Jun 4, 2024, without his authorization. Despite SMS alerts that night and more notices on Jun 6 and Jun 12, he did not act. Between Jun 17 and Jun 23, 22 transactions totaling 430,000 yen were made through Apple Pay with merchants in Japan’s stored-value electronic money system.