Woman loses $67,500 to scammer posing as WeChat employee
A woman lost most of her savings after she believed a scammer’s lie that she had mistakenly bought insurance coverage from WeChat and paid $67,500, hoping to cancel the policy.
Ironically, the policy was called “protection from scams insurance”.
Impersonating a WeChat employee, the scammer told the victim, 35, that she needed to make several transfers from her bank accounts to “authenticate” the cancellation of this policy.
Desperate to avoid paying premiums for something she did not remember applying for, she said she took out loans worth tens of thousands of dollars to settle the cancellation.
The victim, who wanted to be known only as Ms Ng, has made a police report. The police said investigations are ongoing.
Speaking to The Straits Times on Jan 3, Ms Ng, a manager at a telecommunications firm, said the scammer called her in December 2024.
He told her that she had paid for the policy on WeChat using her Trust Bank card, which she had linked to the WeChat messaging app.
Ms Ng said she believed him because she had just linked her Trust Bank card to her WeChat account, so the timing made sense.
“The scammer sounded professional and could even list the banks I had accounts with. He said money would continue to be deducted from my card if I didn’t cancel the policy quickly. So I was quite anxious.”
Following the scammer’s instructions, Ms Ng took out a $27,800 loan from her Trust Bank account and transferred the money to the scammer.
She said: “He kept saying it was just a ‘virtual loan’. So I thought it was virtual money and I wouldn’t get charged for it. I was so naive, it didn’t occur to me there would be actual money involved.
“Now, as I’m recounting what happened, I feel stupid because I know what the scammer said made no sense. But at that point I felt like I had been brainwashed.”
Over the almost two-hour call with the scammer, Ms Ng took out another loan of $16,700 to pay the scammer and transferred another $23,000 of her savings to an offshore account.
She added: “Every time I hesitated and questioned the scammer, he would direct me to his ‘supervisor’ and convince me to stay on the line. I just followed instructions.”
She realised she had been scammed only when she saw the $23,000 deducted from her account, despite the scammer telling her the transaction would not go through.
Ms Ng, who is single, said she plans to take on part-time jobs to repay the loans she took.
“I’ve been scolding myself about what I have done. I regularly read the news about scams and would even warn my elderly mother about the latest scam tactics. Yet I’ve fallen for a scam myself,” she said.
In response to ST’s queries, a Trust Bank spokesman said the bank was in contact with Ms Ng to provide support but could not share more details due to customer confidentiality.
The spokesman added: “We note that the authorities have highlighted an increasing number of scam typologies in Singapore across the industry, including scams where victims receive unsolicited phone calls from scammers impersonating staff from a range of companies.”
The bank urged customers to follow safe banking practices, including keeping card and banking credentials secure.
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