SINGAPORE - What 27-year-old Ms Ong thought was blossoming love after an online encounter on Facebook’s dating service turned out to be a scam that saw her lose $5,000 in three weeks.
The Malaysian woman, who works as an administrative officer in Singapore, told The Straits Times that she was approached by a man on Facebook Dating in February.
He claimed to be a group manager at e-commerce and gaming company Sea and added Ms Ong as a Facebook friend. The man also started messaging her regularly over the course of three weeks.
“From time to time, he would talk about an investment programme, and after a while, he said I was lucky enough to receive an invitation to invest,” said Ms Ong, who wanted to be known only by her surname.
It was supposedly an exclusive scheme open only to those with invitation codes, she added.
The man sent her a link to a website with options to invest in projects such as Build-To-Order flats, non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrency.
“I invested $2,100 the first time in early March and received $315 in profit within an hour,” said Ms Ong, adding that she was promised high returns.
Thinking that the scheme was legitimate, she invested another $5,000, only to be told that she had to invest additional funds in a “special project”, which the company was running, before she could get her cash back.
When she told the man that she had no more money, he told her to borrow from friends and family.
“He suddenly turned on me and said that if I could not raise the money for the project within a certain amount of time, I would have to pay a penalty fee,” said Ms Ong, who realised then that she had been scammed.
She made a police report and froze her bank account. The police confirmed that a report was lodged and investigations are ongoing.
“I blame myself for what happened, for making such a low-level mistake.”
She went on to post about what happened on Facebook and Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu. Ms Ong said she has received messages from more than 30 other victims, most of whom were also allegedly scammed by people posing as Sea employees. One woman claimed that she had lost $100,000.
ST was unable to verify the number of victims who were duped by these scammers.
A Sea spokesman told ST that the company was aware of scams where criminals impersonate its employees and invite people to invest in bogus schemes through unauthorised apps and websites.
“Please note that Sea does not engage in such solicitation, and these messages are not affiliated with our company,” said the spokesman, urging the public to be vigilant.
The public should report any such scams or related suspicious messages to feedback@sea.com and the authorities, he added.
Meanwhile, Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao reported a similar scam on Thursday, where a 29-year-old civil servant was duped by a man who claimed to work for real estate company GuocoLand.
The woman told the newspaper that they would talk on the phone for at least an hour every day, and he later persuaded her to invest in fake schemes.
She reportedly put in $3,000 before the scammer tried to convince her to invest another $7,000 to become a “silver member” to earn higher returns.
Suspecting something was amiss, she then stopped investing. Lianhe Zaobao reported that she was able to get her money back, although it did not specify how she managed to do so.
A GuocoLand spokesman told ST that the website the woman accessed had been taken down and did not belong to the company or its subsidiaries.
“Members of the public are advised to exercise caution and vigilance due to the rising incidence of scams and frauds,” said the spokesman.
He added that the public can verify information through GuocoLand’s website, www.guocoland.com, or e-mail contact@guocoland.com.
