Wah, The Amount Of Money Scammed From S’poreans in 2017 Can Buy You 33 Condos At Scotts Tower In Orchard

“Dude, are you serious?” I asked, raising my eyebrows a little.

“Yah, bro! Can buy 33 Condos at Scotts Tower!” my editor replied, twirling a pen in one hand. “Of course I know since I live there mah!”

Ok then. I shrugged, dragging my feet back to my workspace. Well, who am I to argue with the editor!

To give you some context, S$99 million dollars were lost to scams in 2017, and my editor claims that that’s enough to buy 33 condos in Scotts Tower.

Amongst the various forms of scams, email impersonation scam is the highest “earner”, with victims losing at least S$43 million in total. This is the most amount of money lost in the last 3 years and also a 70% increase from 2016!

Just so you know, the largest amount lost in a single case in 2017 was S$5.7 million.

I have no idea how someone managed to lose S$5.7 million in a scam, and I don’t have enough info to comment on this.

But hey, this goes to show why people are still committing scams nowadays. Out of 1,000 people, at least 1 is bound to take the bait no matter how obvious you think the scam is.

Cases of email impersonation amounted to 328 in 2017, which is almost a 30% increase from the 257 cases in 2016.

According to the report by Channel NewsAsia, most of the victims are businesses fooled into transferring money into fraud bank accounts of their business partners.

Most of the time, the scammers must have hacked into the businesses’ email accounts and gained access to their contacts.

Scammers will then ask the victims to transfer payments to a new bank account, by using the businesses’ email account or by using a similar email account.

Just so you know, my colleague (let’s call him A) told me that once, he was in ICT when he received an email from another colleague (let’s call him B). The incoming email address is correct, but it would reply to a Gmail instead (when all our emails are @goodyfeed.com)

Turns out it’s a scam – thank God Colleague A who supposedly has his IQ lowered during ICT still could think carefully and WhatsApp Colleague B to verify.

Hmm, no matter what it is, I think it’s safe for us to say that it’s always important to double check things before proceeding—especially if it involves money!

Unless, well, you don’t mind losing S$5.7 million to some weird anonymous fella!

Always quarrel with your bae? Then you need to watch this video and learn this trick on how to resolve arguments without any compromise or apology (and also subscribe to Goody Feed YouTube channel):

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com

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