A 56-year-old woman in Singapore, hoping to buy some cheap drinks from an online grocery store, ended up losing S$199,996 after downloading a "shopping app" as instructed by the seller.
She also received two suspicious calls from the same number, one from a man asking her to return a PayNow transfer made by mistake, and another from a "police officer" who claimed to be handling her case.
The victim, Li (transliterated from Chinese) told Lianhe Zaobao that she came across a Facebook page purportedly advertising a grocery store on July 4.
Enticed by the cheap prices, Li decided to purchase some drinks in preparation for an upcoming family dinner.
Downloaded a mobile "shopping app"
Li contacted the seller on Facebook and provided her phone number.
Subsequently, they continued the conversation over WhatsApp.
"The person asked me to download their company's mobile app to place my order," Li explained to Lianhe Zaobao.
After downloading the app, however, she felt uneasy, so she didn't reply the seller about the order.
The seller later wrote to Li that she had been sent S$20 via PayNow as a reward for opening a new account, but she ignored him.
Asked to return money "mistakenly sent" to her bank account
A few days later, Li was contacted by another man on WhatsApp.
He told her that he had sent her S$128 via PayNow by mistake.
Apparently, the money was intended for his girlfriend, who shared the same phone number as Li.
The man also convinced Li to return the money as it was meant to "save the life" of his girlfriend.
As Li did not like using online banking services, she asked her nephew to help her make the transfer instead.
Found an unknown app on her phone that kept sending notifications
Later that day, Li found that an app called “Compass For Android” on her phone was continually sending her notifications.
She did not remember downloading that particular app, so she asked someone to uninstall it for her.
Two days later, her nephew found two more suspicious apps on her phone, and deleted them too.
Lost S$199,996 in 8 unauthorised transactions
Unfortunately, the damage had already been done.
Li soon realised that eight unauthorised transactions had been made from her bank account, amounting to S$199,996 in total.
Immediately, she notified the bank to freeze her accounts, and also lodged a police report.
Called by an "officer handling her case"
The story did not end there.
One week after discovering the scam, Li received a call from a person who claimed to be an officer from Woodlands Police Station, who was investigating the case.
When she pointed out that she had reported the case at Ang Mo Kio Police Station, the person explained that there were too many cases at hand, so some of them had been transferred to the Woodlands branch.
The "officer" also offered to help her unfreeze her bank accounts, and arranged to meet up with her at Woodlands the next day.
After hanging up, however, Li realised that the call had been made from the same number as the man who had told her about the erroneous PayNow transfer.
She made another police report against the fake "officer".
Hopes to recover her money
According to Lianhe Zaobao, a month has passed since the incident, but Li has not heard about any progress from the police or bank investigations.
"I have already given the number of the fake 'officer' to the police, and I just hope I can somehow get my money back," Li said.
In response to Mothership's queries, the police confirmed that reports were lodged, and investigations are ongoing.
Top image from Lianhe Zaobao.