SINGAPORE, July 16 — For several years now, shady operators on Telegram have been offering ways to help people who are not qualified to drive to circumvent the law, such as by selling car sharing accounts for them to rent cars, or providing them with forged driving licences.
Over the past three weeks, TODAY found six listings offering fake driving licences and 11 listings selling car sharing accounts, and spoke to them undercover.
Car sharing account sellers charge their customers between S$200 (RM685) and S$520, with prices differing for each type of account under the various car sharing companies, including BlueSG, Drive lah, GetGo and Tribecar.
Sellers who spoke to TODAY claimed to have helped “more than 100” customers.
Two websites and four Telegram accounts were peddling fake driving licences that can be delivered to customers within nine days, with prices ranging from S$400 to S$550 for digital licences and S$800 to S$850 for both physical and digital licences.
Several cases of unauthorised use of car sharing accounts have made the news in recent years.
On July 11, an underage driver who bought a GetGo account to ferry passengers from Telegram group SG Hitch was sentenced to probation.
Another offender used her mother’s Singpass account to create a Tribecar account, and then rented and drove cars without a licence. She was also given probation last year.
In another case in January 2022, a 17-year-old boy used his mother’s Tribecar account to rent a car, and then got into an accident.
In response to queries, the police said they are aware of car sharing accounts and fake driving licences being sold on platforms such as Telegram. They said they conduct investigations whenever they receive reports of such cases.
First-time offenders found guilty of forgery, using or being in possession of a fake driving licence may be jailed for up to one year, fined up to S$10,000, or both.
The digital driving licence on the Singpass app comes with security features that enable the police to tell if it is fake.
“An animated and holographic lion crest on the digital licence deters image tampering and screenshot spoofing – the lion crest will be absent or appear static if a person simply captures a screenshot or recording of the digital licence and attempts to pass that off as authentic,” the police said.
My brush with car sharing account sellers on Telegram
This reporter went undercover to find out how car sharing account sellers operate.
Sellers on Telegram employ two methods: They would either provide someone’s personal information, such as a name and National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) number, for customers to use to create a new car sharing account, or they would provide login details of an existing account that belongs to someone else.
All the sellers recommended the first option, with one seller even saying that should I get spot-checked at a police road block, it would be the original account holder who would be in trouble.
When asked how they managed to get hold of the accounts, one seller said that he buys accounts that belong to “our people”. Other sellers said that they got the accounts from those who sold it to them.
Upon further questioning, the sellers claimed that upon purchasing an account with them, they would give a customer a physical copy of another person’s identification card and bank card.
The sellers said that I only needed to make a one-time payment for unlimited use of the car, and that the car sharing companies would not charge me for renting the car.
The sellers also said that their clientele consisted of “mostly young punks” who had no driving licences but wanted to drive.
Sellers also said including a fake driving licence under the account could be done, but one told me that getting a “real” driving licence “under the table” would be better. This seller claimed that he had “insider people” to provide “under table” licences.
He said that licence details would be recorded in Singpass and in “the TP (Traffic Police) system”.
He further claimed that he had connections with people working in the Traffic Police who could “bypass” the system to issue “legitimate” driving licences.
The sellers also said there was no need for a real licence, and in the event of an inspection by the Traffic Police, they told me to show my fake driver licence and “act innocent”.
Some sellers said that the police cannot check drivers’ car sharing accounts.
Sellers also assured me that my licence records would show that I have passed all theory and practical tests.
One seller bragged that he would bribe people from the Traffic Police to get them to register a licence.
This seller instructed me to pay S$200 upfront before paying S$625 eventually to fund the process.
After patronising these sellers with my “interest” in getting a licence, I never went through with the transaction, leaving me uncertain if I could have obtained a car sharing account or a fake driving licence, or if these sellers would have simply escaped with my money.
These sellers stopped talking and some deleted their Telegram accounts, after I told them that I am a journalist.
Screenshots of a conversation with an operator selling car sharing accounts on Telegram.
Screenshots of a conversation with an operator selling car sharing accounts on Telegram.
Car sharing companies aware of cases
Tribecar said it encountered fewer than 10 cases every month of cases involving individuals who used fake driving licences, someone else’s licence or doctored documents to set up fraudulent accounts.
Drive lah said its incidence rate for cases of unauthorised use of accounts was below 0.06 per cent of trips, and these usually involved people using their family members’ accounts.
These companies are aware of such cases arising, saying that they conduct various verification checks to ensure their accounts are used by licensed and authorised drivers.
Charlene Kee, deputy general manager of Tribecar, said that the firm verifies details through the applicant’s NRIC, driving licence and proof of residence.
Dirk Jan, co-founder of Drive lah, said that in the event of a detected misuse, the company bans the accounts involved before reporting the perpetrators to the police.
A GetGo spokesperson said that the firm uses GovTech’s MyInfo service, facial recognition via Singpass and biometric identification to qualify users before they can book a vehicle or start driving.
This security feature verifies a user’s identity by asking him to submit a selfie, which is then cross-checked against his biometric records in a government database.
“If the user fails (facial verification) for a total of five tries, the account will be automatically banned,” the GetGo spokesperson said.
A spokesperson from Singapore Largest Telegram Network (SGTGN) said that it has seen such advertisements on a daily basis and across multiple public groups under its network, including SG Hitch.
“They have a lot of accounts, we have to manually delete their advertisements,” said the spokesperson.
SGTGN is a Telegram network group that links people up with various broadcast channels and affiliated groups like SG Hitch.
To eliminate such “spams”, SGTGN uses an auto-filter bot that detects keywords commonly seen in such advertisements. The system deletes the message automatically, blocks the sender and auto replies with a message that reads: “There is no such thing as a Free Licence. Please be aware of scammers.”
Risk of users being scammed
Cybersecurity experts believe that these sellers are likely scammers.
“The likely intent of these sellers is to profit from fees paid for such fake licences, or to steal personal data that could subsequently be used to scam the victim, or be sold to others,” said Benjamin Tan, chief executive officer of cybersecurity firm Red Alpha.
Once victims have paid up, the sellers would likely disappear and delete their Telegram chats, said Ali Fazeli, a senior cyberthreat intelligence consultant at NexVision Lab.
“The moment they receive (your) personal information, they can use it for malicious activity like identity theft and other illegal purposes,” he added.
David Siah, vice president of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies, said: “Even if you successfully receive a counterfeit licence, using it could lead to arrest, fines, or even imprisonment for document forgery.” — TODAY
