Pregnant M’sian Living in S’pore Lost About $60K from Fake FB Ads Selling Tingkat Meals

2023-09-13 , 11:48 am

It seems like all you hear about nowadays are scams, Rebecca Lim, mooncakes, and scams.

If you’re wondering why scams appeared twice, it’s not a mistake; there are just so many new ones popping up we’re already losing track of them all.

Just like Pokemon.

And in the latest scam alert, the victim is a pregnant Malaysian woman living in Singapore.

Ms Yan is a 32-year-old Malaysian woman working in Singapore.

She is reportedly seven months pregnant.

On 4 Sep 2023, she saw an ad for tingkat meals on Facebook.

The meal was promoted to be good for the health of both mother and baby, and costs less than S$5 for two vegetable dishes and one meat.

Cheap and good? It’s like the tingkat meal provider is my mother.

Hooked, Ms Yan decided to get into contact with the seller.

Downloaded an APK to Make Payment

She contacted the other party via the number provided on the ad, and was sent a link to download an apk for payment.

However, she seemingly failed to download the apk and subsequently told the other party that she was no longer interested.

A voice message asking her to wait was sent but she ignored it.

Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse after that.

Ms Yan only noticed that something was wrong when she attempted to withdraw money from the ATM machine.

She could not even withdraw S$50.

Then, she found out that her savings of around S$60,000 vanished into thin air.

Ms Yan immediately called the bank and was told that a total of S$58,333 was taken from her bank account.

After that, she called the police and was told that she had likely fallen for a malware scam.

While she did not managed to download the apk file, her phone had allegedly gotten warmer and she was not able to access her banking apps.

She is also sure that she did not provide any online banking information, Singpass information or OTPs to anyone.

Ms Yan is seven months pregnant and was planning to return to Malaysia to give birth in Nov 2023.

However, her plan was disrupted as she was only left with 90 cents in her bank account.

To help her with her living expenses, Ms Yan’s colleagues raised funds for her.

Ms Yan has been working in Singapore for seven years and is devastated that all her hard-earned savings has been taken away.

Earlier this month, it was reported that about 27 people have lost a total of S$325,000 to mooncake scams from Facebook ads.

Two days later on 8 Sep 2023, it was reported that a man had lost S$60K in his DBS account for cheap alcohol.

This is also a major reason behind OCBC’s decision to help safeguard their customers’ phones for them.

You can watch the video below to find out more.

While new scams are popping out faster than new trends on TikTok, here are a few general rules that may just save you from a miserable fate:

If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
If you’re required download a 3rd-party app to facilitate payment or refund, run away as fast as you can
Never provide personal information such as Singpass or online banking details to anyone, even someone claiming to be from the bank
If someone calls you claiming to be a friend, hang up on them immediately