A 74-year-old uncle from Singapore found himself stripped of nearly S$70,000 (US$51,139.87) after being persuaded into downloading a third-party app to buy Peking duck.
How it started.
Preferring to be addressed as Mr. Loh, he came across a post by a shop called "Little Duck (小小鸭子)" on Facebook.
The advertisement was about Peking duck selling at a fair price — S$23.80 (US$17.39) for 1.5 kilograms. The delivery fee was at a fixed rate of S$5 (US$3.65).
Mr. Loh told Shin Min Daily News that he considered the idea of buying Peking duck in the first place because there would be a family gathering and he remembered his grandchildren liking the dish.
Hence, he contacted the seller via Whatsapp to place an order.
The seller sent a voice message and told Mr. Loh that he had to download a third-party app called 'Grab & Go', and that he would have to pay the S$5 (US$3.65) delivery fee in advance through PayNow.
However, Mr. Loh was cautious about the procedure. He questioned the seller, asking if it was a scam. The seller brushed his worry off saying, "No one will scam such a little amount of money".
Everything falls into place.
In the midst of everything, Mr. Loh's screen turned black all of a sudden. He stated that he had tried turning off his phone multiple times but to no avail. The seller assured him that everything would be okay and he would fix the error.
Starting to get anxious, Mr. Loh told the seller that he insisted on canceling the transaction. The seller told him to wait for the 'cancel' button to appear, but it never did.
At the same time, Mr. Loh's wife had a gut feeling that something was terribly wrong. Almost immediately, she contacted her son and son-in-law to let them know what was going on.
Their son-in-law helped them call the bank's emergency hotline to freeze Mr. Loh's bank accounts.
For safety measures, Mr. Loh chose to freeze his other bank accounts, as well as his Singpass account where his provident funds were stored.
Too late to stop him.
The bank informed them about the changes in Mr. Loh's account after their emergency call. The initial transfer limit of S$3,000 (US$2,182.20) had been altered and raised by the scammer.
The scammer first wired out S$59,000 (US$42,916.60) from Mr. Loh's current account at the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) and savings account at the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) before making a credit advance of S$11,000 (US$8,001.40) on his credit card.
The scammer had sucked Mr. Loh's hard earn money and savings.
"This was 10 years' worth of savings and my hard-earned pension money. I was so mad at myself. I used to be a businessman and I've seen so much from my days in the industry yet I still fell into this trap."
Mr. Loh also stated that he did not receive any notifications from the bank regarding changes to the fund transfer limits.
According to Mothership SG's report, there might be a possibility that the scammers were able to delete the notifications or prevent them from appearing on the screen after seizing and gaining control over the victim's phone.
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