Jeanette Aw Lost Her Phone & Soon, Scammers Used Her Name to Ask For Donation

What would you do if your celebrity crush suddenly starts a conversation with you on Instagram, requesting donations for a supposed orphanage?

“I would want you to help me with $5,500 to support the orphanage so immediately after my vacation is over, and my account can be accessed, I’ll have your money to you,” your crush states explicitly.

Would you…

• Go “yes, Yes, YES!” and donate $5,500 right there on the spot?
• Consider for a little bit, and request to meet your celebrity crush in person first. “Might as well ask for a signature while at it, right,” you reason.
• Ask your celebrity crush to kindly screw off, weep at their imaginary death and go celebrity-hopping over the next few days?

If you just picked the first option, congrats; you’ve just gotten scammed. But if you picked the second one, you’ll have reacted the exact same way this fan of Jeanette Aw’s did when she was asked for donations from ‘Aw’.

Thankfully, however, she didn’t fall prey for the scam.

Jeanette Aw Lost Her Phone & Soon, Scammers Used Her Name to Ask For Donation

Just yesterday (10 June), local actress Jeanette Aw posted a public notification on her Instagram profile, warning fans not to entertain a fake “her” that has recently sprouted up.

View this post on Instagram

The place where I lost my phone. Just as sudden as that happened, many fake accounts started popping up, texting fans and launching full conversations with them, asking for money and asking for their pictures. The weird things the fake “me” would do. Please look out for the verification tick.. then again some smart ones could fake that too? Just don’t engage and encourage more fake accounts to appear.

A post shared by Jeanette Aw 欧萱 (@jeanetteaw) on Jun 9, 2019 at 5:31am PDT

Lest you can’t read, here’s a rough transcript of what went down:

“The place where I lost my phone.

“Just as sudden as that happened, many fake accounts started popping up, texting fans and launching full conversations with them, asking for money and asking for their pictures. The weird things the fake “me” would do.

“Please look out for the verification tick.. then again some smart ones could fake that too? Just don’t engage and encourage more fake accounts to appear.”

Additionally, she also posted screenshots of the conversations that the imposters allegedly had with her fans, one of which read:

“I would want you to help me with $5,500 to support the orphanage so immediately after my vacation is over, and my account can be accessed, I’ll have your money to you.”

Thankfully, the fan in question didn’t fall for the scam, requesting to meet ‘Jeanette’ in person before she would comply with any donation causes.

Here’s a collage of the screenshots Jeanette Aw has posted in regards to the incident:

Stating that she does not ask for donations for her charity work, or “text and speak in such a manner”, the actress appealed to her fans not to engage with such impersonations.

And it seems that her fans clearly got it, considering how they’ve flocked to her manager’s Instagram account to leave comments, expressing how they will be cautious of such scams.

It has to be mentioned that the actress, who’s currently vacationing in Greece, had recently lost her phone at this particular place:

And it was then that fake ‘Jeanettes’ began to appear.

With that said, please do beware these impersonators who come asking for your money.

Sure, it’s cool to imagine that one day your celebrity crush (Jessica Alba?!) might just come appealing to you for money. But hey, honestly speaking…

What are the chances of that?

So don’t be like this birdbrained writer here, and always be on the lookout for such scams. After all…

You don’t want your hard-earned money to go to some undeserving twat, do you?

To know more about scams, do check out a series of anti-scam videos we’ve done in collaboration with Jeanette Aw the Singapore Police Force: