It seemed too good of a deal to pass on.

On Jan. 14, When Tom (not his real name) saw that his polytechnic friend messaged him on Instagram to offer him a Lazada voucher, he jumped at the bargain.

After all, such offers seemed normal coming from his friend, who is incidentally an Instagram model and influencer.

Tom's 'friend' told him that he had won a S$1,000 voucher, and she needed his Lazada account number, a photo of his credit card and the OTP for the voucher to be dispensed.

Unfortunately, as soon as he handed over the OTP, his bank account reflected a deduction of RM1,200.

"I thought, 'She’s my friend, there’s no harm in giving my card to her,' (so) I did. But then once I did, I noticed that about S$400 was missing from my account like immediately, so I got suspicious," he told media in a telephone interview earlier this week.

Not his real friend

On closer inspection, Tom realised that his 'friend''s Instagram username had one extra letter compared to her authentic one. When he did an Instagram search of her name, two accounts popped up.

Tom hurriedly called his friend to ask her if she had texted him, and she said no.

In desperation, he messaged the scammer on Instagram for clarification. The scammer replied, "You're welcome", and promptly asked him for his details for another round of transactions. A crestfallen Tom then went down to the police station to file a report.

The incident hit too close to home, he said, as he didn't expect such an uncanny impersonation of his friend.

The impersonator had made their profile page almost an exact replica. Tom said the pictures the scammer posted on the fake profile page were the same as his friend's.

"Even when this person was texting, the style of texting was like my friend’s — exactly like my friend’s — which I don’t know how that would be possible," he said.

Didn't know how cards worked

Tom also attributed most of his woes to a lack of credit card literacy.

"I wasn’t really aware of how cards, in general, worked because I don’t do much of online shopping, so I didn’t know what [details I’m not supposed to disclose], but now I do," he said.

According to the National Crime Prevention Council's website scamalert.sg, here are some good credit card practices to follow:

• Never provide bank account numbers, credit card numbers or personal information to anyone you do not trust or have not checked out beforehand
• Think about the necessary information for your purchase and do not give any more than is necessary

Tom said he will not give his card details, even to a friend, in the future.

Not a new scam

What Tom had fallen victim to is what's referred to as the Instagram impersonation scam, where a scammer duplicates a person's profile under a similar username and then reaches out to individuals on the person's follower or "following" list, acting as the duplicated person, to defraud them of money through various means.

Although Tom said he was previously unaware of this type of scam, it actually isn't a new thing. It's been happening since the second half of last year, in fact, possibly even prior:

"You hear stories and stuff like that, you’d never take it seriously, you know, because you never thought that you would be a victim," said Tom.

He added that his friend was most likely targeted by scammers as she is popular on Instagram and her profile is public. Tom's own Instagram profile is public too.

When asked if he now plans to restrict his profile to friends, Tom declined, saying that it would "lose the essence" of social media.

"I feel that that’s not for me, to suddenly make my social media page private cause of this. It’s definitely a solution, but it doesn’t solve the root of the issue as we speak. A much more wiser approach is to make the public more aware of such situations happening," he said.

The police urges social media users to make their profiles private, and call to double-check before making any transactions with friends who request them.

For online shoppers, police advised them to register for an escrow account, such as Carousell Protection, to make sure that sellers only receive money paid for an item when it is received in good order.

Investigations are still undergoing for Tom's case, but he is sadly unlikely to recover the money he lost.

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Top photo by S O C I A L . C U T from Unsplash