Actress Aileen Tan Nearly Become a WhatsApp Scam Victim
If one thinks of how Halloween frights usually occur, one would think of supernatural events involving scary skeletons or gory ghosts.
Singaporean Actress Aileen Tan had experienced quite the scare on Halloween, during which she experienced a freaky encounter with an entity disguising itself as her husband.
The source of the problem was not a paranormal event, however, but a very convincing (and very spooky) digital scam.
Aileen Tan Received Texts From Imposter Claiming to Be Her Husband
On 31 October, Tan had been watching local horror movie Confinement when she received a bone-chilling text from an imposter pretending to be her husband.
According to Lianhe Zaobao, the man asked Tan if she had HKD$10,000 (SGD$1,743) with her. He also told her that he needed Tan to help him make an online purchase with the money, promising that he would reimburse her in cash.
The imposter later sent her details to a bank account from an alleged Hong Kong-based bank, asking her to transfer the money there.
As Tan was understandably engrossed with watching the movie (and had forgotten how to transfer funds to an overseas bank account), she responded to the text that she would handle the transfer later.
She was also suspicious about the nature of her “husband’s” texts, as he would have been busy at work the same time the texts would have been sent.
This was when things took an even stranger turn, as Tan received yet another text from her husband. This time, it was a voice message warning her not to transfer funds to strangers, which confused Tan even more.
To transfer, or not to transfer? That was the question.
After putting two and two together, Tan realised that the imposter had infiltrated her husband’s WhatsApp account without completely locking out her husband’s access, which resulted in the conflicting nature of past two texts.
The Impersonator That Attempted to Threaten Tan With Divorce Had Previously Scammed Her Husband’s Family Member
Attempting to escalate the matter, the imposter tried to use the divorce card to coerce Tan into transferring the money.
Tan, having figured things out, responded with a nonchalant “ok”.
After meeting up with her husband in person, Tan scrolled through her husband’s phone only to find that the texts sent by the mysterious imposter were missing. The couple then filed a report on WhatsApp regarding the hacked account before notifying the police.
The day after the incident, Aileen Tan took to Instagram to warn her followers about the incident. She also revealed that the imposter had previously scammed her husband’s sister into transferring money as well.
View this post on Instagram
Tan’s Husband Had Fallen Into A WhatsApp Scam That Compromised His Account
In a reply to her own post, Tan made yet another warning about the dangers of linking WhatsApp to one’s laptop or iPads.
While most people enjoy the convenience of WhatsApp Web, hackers have found ways to exploit those looking to download WhatsApp onto their laptops or iPads.
These days, there are fake websites masquerading online that have occupied the top searches for WhatsApp web.
If one is unfortunate enough to scan the malicious QR codes on these sites, hackers would be able to syphon control of their account and use it for nefarious online scams.
As it turns out, Aileen Tan’s husband may have unwittingly fallen for such a scam. Fortunately for the couple, they emerged from this Halloween fright relatively unscathed.
Singapore is one of the prime targets for scammers; watch this video to the end and you’d understand:
Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:
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