A WOMAN living in Bueng Kan province who lost over 30,000 baht in an electricity bill scam issued a warning for others to be careful and not fall for such tricks, TV Channel 7 said today (Sep. 29.
Ms. Orapin (surname withheld), 30, said on Sep. 22 a power bill from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) arrived at her mother’s house. There was a QR code at the lower right corner that upon scanning got her to chat with a scammer pretending to be an official via Line app.
This person asked whether a lower rate had not been billed to anyone in her neighbourhood because PEA is now steadily offering it to users.
She fell for the trick and the scammer then sent a link to open and follow the instructions.
She has two Krungthai Bank accounts with apps in her mobile phone but was asked whether she had money in any other bank account and if so to transfer all to either one of these two accounts leaving only a few hundred baht in order to get the refund.
Upon transferring 7,200 baht from a Kasikorn Bank account to one of her two Krungthai Bank accounts, with the total in the two accounts being 23,000 baht, and giving the fake official the six-digit pass code for both of them within seconds the accounts were emptied.
Upon losing this much money she reported it to Seka police station and it was when a policeman told her that he had tracked down the owner of the recipient account that she realised that she had been scammed.
She warned others to be careful when scanning a QR Code to make payment as she did not think it would happen to her but she was taken in by this scam.
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A representative image of paying a power bill. Photo: Matichon
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