SINGAPORE— A Singaporean woman could never have expected that her craving for Musang King durian would lead her unknowingly to fall into a scammer’s trap, causing her to lose nearly all of her life savings.
According to the Chinese media outlet Shin Min Daily News, the 50-year-old housewife. surnamed Koh, was unknowingly lured into downloading a third-party application by the scammer, resulting in S$50,000 being transferred out of her bank account.
She was left with only S$7 in her saving.
Ms Koh recalled her terrible experience, stating that she had seen several durian sale advertisements on Facebook over the past few weeks.
Due to her craving for durians and her intention to share them with her family, she contacted one of the dealers, “TMZ Fresh,” last Thursday (4 May) to inquire about the price.
“A few hours later, the dealer replied to me and stated that the company was currently promoting a sale, with Musang King durians priced at S$6 per kilogram and D24 durians priced at S$4 per kilogram.”
When Ms. Koh inquired further about how to place an order and delivery details, the dealer asked for her mobile number, claiming that a “customer service agent” would follow up with her.
Scammer lured victim with free durians to divulge personal information on suspicious app
“Later on, a man with a Malaysian accent contacted me, and asked me to download an application called ‘E2 Mall’ and input my personal information to sign up for membership. ”
“He even offered me free durians. I followed his instructions, but my online payment was repeatedly rejected.”
The “agent” then instructed her to go to the bank on 6 May to obtain a security token. Ms. Koh even entered her banking information into the app.
After doing so, Ms. Koh wanted to contact the agent but realized that the agent’s Facebook and WhatsApp were no longer available. However, she did not think much about it at the time.
It was not until the next morning (7 May) that Ms Koh was shocked to find that more than S$50,000 in her bank account was missing when she logged into her bank application.
She was frightened and immediately reported the incident to the police and informed the bank, but it was too late.
Two unauthorized transaction
“I discovered that on Saturday, two unauthorized transfers had been made from my account. The first transfer was for S$27,549, and the second transfer was for S$26,231.”
“This was all my life savings, ” Ms. Koh suspected that the scammer might have controlled her phone remotely to perform the transactions and recalled that her phone was heating up after she keyed in her bank details into the app.
After the unfortunate incident, Ms Koh changed her phone and contact number, hoping that the scammer would not access her contacts to prevent others from potentially becoming the scammers’ next victims.
She regretted her action and lamented that this might be the most expensive durians she had ever bought.
The police have confirmed that they are investigating the matter.
