Picture this: A 19-year-old male enteres a 7-Eleven store along Yishun Ave 5 around 2am to buy an iTunes gift card worth $100. The sales assistant, seeing that he already purchased a gift card of similar value, warns him that the card is non-refundable and non-exchangeable. She gives him a pamphlet from the police about an Internet scam, detailing an attractive female on WeChat convincing victims to buy and transfer online gift cards in exchange for a date or sexual services, which (obviously) never comes to pass. The man reads it and realises he’s been scammed.
The cautionary tale actually happened, and it’s one of many Internet love scams plaguing Singapore. According to the police, such cases are on the rise since the start of the year, and they involve increasingly huge sums of money. They are the top scam in Singapore (based on amount) from January to April so far, with 190 cases and a total of $7.5 million lost. In second place is the China officials impersonation scam at $4 million, followed by the online purchase scam at $532,500, and the credit for sex scam at $422,200. Other types of frauds revolve around fake lottery winnings, phony PayPal accounts and pretend kidnappings.
The profile of an Internet love scam victim usually looks something like this: Female, aged between 30 and 59, Chinese, holding executive, professional, administrative or managerial positions. Facebook is the main platform used to target these ladies; others include Meetup.com, Skout and OkCupid.
But the highest amount of money lost in a single case actually goes to a victim of the China officials impersonation scam, where the person was tricked of $2.3 million.
