Showing posts with label scam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scam. Show all posts

24 August 2018

Scam Statistics

The recent statistics from Singapore Police Force shows an increased in crime rate especially in the area of scams. These scammers are really working hard, casting the net wide to cheat people of their hard-earned money.



Even though my relationship status is stated as married, I still receive invitation from fake profiles at social media almost every other day. I just met up with an ex-colleague who is single. She showed me her Dating App account, each profile shows a few photos and bare information of the person. It is tough to assess if they are genuine in the Dating App.

I told her the safest route to meet singles is to attend group events ran by Singapore's Accredited Dating Agencies, which have the procedure to check all their customers marital status at Registry of Marriage. I am glad she took my suggestion and joined a dating event conducted by one of my student recently. Sincerely wish her success in her search for love!

10 June 2014

Love Scams 4


After I've blogged about love scams, a lady Ms M shared with me a terrible experience she had with John, a local guy she met online recently.

According to Ms M, she had spend about S$ 4000 during their dates and lend him S$ 1000 before he disappeared. Later, she found out from his online profile that a few ladies had been cheated by John too. They had made a police report and requested that I help to inform the rest of the singles about this man.

Ms M had provided me his photos and screen capture of his profile. My comments are in red.

Please click on the image to read the details


Above is the screen capture of his online profile which he used to meet ladies and get them to pay for his expensive toys and meals. After that he will borrow money from them and disappear. One of the ladies commented on his profile that he cheats women of money while the other threatened to make a police report. He might have changed his car plate and telephone by now.

Here is Ms M's account in blue:

"I recently met a guy from Tagged who goes by the nick-> John T. He says his name is John Tan and his chinese name is called Shao Liang. His mobile no is 9793 4XXX. By the way he tells people that he works as a flight engineer. According to him, he said he is working with this company called Bombardier (which is located at Seletar Aerospace). He drives a weekend plate Mitsubishi Lancer which is red in color with no plate as 1068. He claims to have an elder brother who is already married and he is single and living with his mum. He mentioned that his dad is a retired chief SIA pilot trained in 747 and his mum is a retired teacher and he says he stays around East Coast. He says his birthday is on the 9th June. 

I met him on the night of 30th May 2014 (Friday) and we proceeded to a place near Haji Lane for drinks and talked the whole night through. He says that he knows how to play the piano and is also completed his grade 8. We chatted the whole night and we ordered only 2 Fiji Mineral Water and 1 Normal drink (Lime Freeze). Subsequently I went to the toilet and he settled the bill which I saw he paid using credit card. 

We went out again on the 1st June 2014 (Sunday) and I treated him to a dinner at Prive. He ordered so much food which was impossible to finish by 2 people. Subsequently I treated him to drink at 1-Altitude as well.

He acted to gentleman and even drove all the way down to my office at Tanjong Pagar during lunch time to give me flowers and said the ERP and the S$20 for the red plate charge didn't bother him.

Then on Tuesday, 3rd June 2014, he booked an expensive place-> Shinji Restaurant at Raffles Hotel and we went for dinner. He again ordered the most expensive set and I only ordered the cheaper set and he even ordered Sake. Once again, he said i owed him a treat cause I lost my bet and i was made to settle the bill again which was a whopping S$ 950!!! At the time, I asked him as a flight engineer how much does he earn exactly and he said about S$ 10000 a month and he even showed me his wallet had about S$ 3000 in cash.

I told him his standard of living was way too high and this isn't the high of life I am used to. So he said its ok Thursday (5th June 2014), he will bring me to Equinox and buy me back a meal. Then he suddenly told me since his Birthday is coming on the 9th June 2014 and he wanted a remote control car.




I told him sorry I am not able to afford what he wants but he insisted that we went to see since he already ordered the car. The shop is at Orchard Plaza called S'wan Trading. I refused to pay for him and told him since you ordered it yourself you pay for it yourself. But he beg and beg and he said why don't you pay for it first and I'll pay you pay in cash. Naively I believed him and I paid for it using my credit card which cost another S$ 2000. After that as we felt it was too early to proceed for dinner, we went to Marina Sqaure -> Yamaha Music School and he even showed me that he knows how to play the piano. He played 2 songs-> Canon in D Major and 听海 by 张惠妹. After that we left for Equinox. 

At Equniox, he ordered a lot yet again. Like he have never eaten in his whole life. We sat through and chatted and when it was time to settle the bill, he said "oh no, he can't find his wallet" probably left them in his car and he needs to go to his car to find. The restaurant manager was pressing for me to settle the bill and he didn't dare to come up and asked me to settle it for him first. I eventually did and the meal cost S$ 700+. In the car, he told me he didn't have cash and he needs to borrow S$ 1000 from me. I told him I didn't bring my ATM card then he was like begging and begging and I finally relented and went to withdraw S$1000 from him. 

Subsequently I haven't seen him from Friday till today (Sunday, 8th June 2014). I suspected he blocked me on Whatsapp but he didn't block me from calling him. I need to warn ladies about this guy. From what I know he borrowed S$3000 from another lady as well and disappeared." 



From the information Ms M provided, he looks physically fit, have dark skin tone, big nose, small eyes (single eye lids) and short black hair. He wears white polo tee-shirt usually.

The ugly face of greed


Ladies, please take note as he is still active online looking for sugar mummies. He even got intimate with some of the ladies whom he had taken money from. Imagine the anger, betrayal and disgust these ladies would have felt after they know his true colors! Friends and families, please forward this to all the single females to protect them from being hurt emotionally and financially!



23 May 2014

Love Scams 3


Last month, I was approached by a Chinese guy name "Alex Haung" on my social media (although "Alex" might not be his real name and he might not look as handsome in reality).

Usually I will block and shelf unsolicited stranger messages to my spam folder. But I smell something interestingly fishy. Usually these unsolicited messages came with handsome Caucasian men photos but this round, I see someone of same race as me. I was in the mood of investigative fun, hence decided to chat along to dig out more.

Here is the screen capture of our conversation. Comments are in red.



"Alex Haung" claimed that he is Chinese, doesn't know how to speak mandarin and lives in United Kingdom... Although he wants to make friends with me online but prefers not to make new friends face to face when I offered to introduced friends to him in UK. Very shady! He could not handle most of questions and out bursted his honest opinion of Asian ladies after some questioning.

I would have continued to find out his purpose of looking for foolish girls? Are foolish girls more attractive? Or are they more loaded with spare cash to be conned? Do they make him feel smarter? But after his confession that he is approaching Asian girls "bcos they are fools", he deleted me from his profile, so I could not message him again. Too bad!

Even though Alex is so keen in looking for friends online, the current approach is unlikely to bring him any nor a single cent. If his motive is to cheese people off, he is already there. If he wants to scam money, he would need to learn more from professional con-artists.

Previously, I've written 2 articles on love scams in this blog, please click here to read them.

4 March 2014

Love Scams 2


I was invited to share on Romance Scams for Channel News Asia documentary series "Undercover Asia". This topic was also in my blog sometime ago.

I used to received a lot of messages on my Facebook from foreign strangers. Interestingly, after I posted about this interview in my Facebook, no more invitations from any of these potential scammers. Praise God!

The key message I hope this documentary could achieve are :
  • Create awareness of the schemes of online romance scammers.
  • Anyone could be a victim of these scams. 
  • If you suspect that you might be a victim, please get opinions from someone trustworthy and wise or consult the police. 
  • If you are already a victim, please make a police report and seek help so that you could move on and love again. 


With the documentary producer


Sharing to create awareness on how scammers seduce for money



Catch the documentary here