Beware & Protect Yourself 07 (Jun 23 - Jan 24)

[winston]

At least S$3.7 million lost to rental scams in H1 2023

by Jessie Lim

AT LEAST 616 victims fell prey to rental scams in the first half of 2023, with total losses amounting to at least S$3.7 million.

One common scam type is which scammers impersonate landlords to cheat unsuspecting tenants of their deposits.

Fake property listings have been advertised to bait prospective clients into parting with their money, and that there were shady investment proposals or scams masquerading as legitimate offerings.

Some scammers go to the extent of having a “runner” open the door to a unit for viewing.
He said: “The runner will pose as the agent’s personal assistant. All this is done to impersonate the identity of the agent and to scam the unsuspecting tenant.”

To convince victims of their identity, scammers even send photos of their Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) registration number, business card and photos or videos of virtual tours of the properties to be leased.

The CEA has a dedicated website on how rental scams work, and what people can do to avoid them:-
https://www.cea.gov.sg/consumers/rental-scams

“The public should check the identity of the salesperson against the CEA public register of salespersons. They should not pay cash to secure a viewing.”

Source: Business Times

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/compan ... ms-h1-2023

[winston]

US man, 82, loses over RM79,000 in artificial intelligence voice-cloning scam

Scammed out of US$17,000 (RM79,381) on Oct 21 after receiving a call from an unknown caller who identified himself as a sergeant from the San Antonio Police Department.

The stranger told Jerry his son-in-law was arrested for causing a serious accident, and another voice, which Jerry believed to be his son-in-law, asked the 82-year-old to help him pay to get out of jail.

Scammers can use just a few seconds of audio from social media posts or even personal voice messages to “create a believable clone that can be manipulated to suit their needs”.

Source: The Houston Chronicle/Tribune News Service

https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-ne ... oning-scam

[winston]

US man, 82, loses over RM79,000 in artificial intelligence voice-cloning scam

Scammed out of US$17,000 (RM79,381) on Oct 21 after receiving a call from an unknown caller who identified himself as a sergeant from the San Antonio Police Department.

The stranger told Jerry his son-in-law was arrested for causing a serious accident, and another voice, which Jerry believed to be his son-in-law, asked the 82-year-old to help him pay to get out of jail.

Scammers can use just a few seconds of audio from social media posts or even personal voice messages to “create a believable clone that can be manipulated to suit their needs”.

Source: The Houston Chronicle/Tribune News Service

https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-ne ... oning-scam

[winston]

Retiree loses life savings to bogus crypto investment

By NELSON BENJAMIN

The woman joined a social media group known as Cuba Untuk Berjaya (try to be successful) several days ago.

In another scam, a businessman who thought he was getting a good deal by purchasing gold bars at a discount, lost RM500,000 instead.

Source: The Star

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/ ... investment

[winston]

Online investment scams in Hong Kong reach all-time high as police warn about fraudsters

Scammers in sham chat groups lure victims onto bogus investment platforms, police warn as losses reach HK$2.1 billion

One victim lost HK$490,000 after she joined Facebook chat group that claimed to offer investment tips from famous stock commentators

by Jess Ma

Source: SCMP

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law ... e=homepage

[winston]

Elderly Hong Kong woman tricked out of HK$16 million after giving out bank account details

Retiree, 76, duped by scammer claiming to be mainland Chinese official, warning her she was suspected of money laundering and then asking for her bank account details

Crime discovered in police crackdown on online scams involving HK$49.8 million in losses, with officers arresting 21 people

by Lo Hoi-ying

Source: SCMP

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law ... ction_tech

[winston]

Elderly couple scammed of over RM1.3mil in investment scheme

Investigation involving nearly 400 victims of an in-person fraudulent investment scheme worth over RM140 million.

Another victim, a former civil servant, said he and his wife lost RM500,000 after investing in the same company in October 2022 under the influence of friends.

Source: The Star

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/ ... ent-scheme

[winston]

Single mum loses over RM170k to love scammer

The 40-year-old civil servant met a man on Instagram last month.

He said the two then got in touch through WhatsApp and the man promised to marry her.

“A few weeks later, the man borrowed RM1,500 from her on the pretext of paying his hospital bill and promised to repay her.

“He continued to ask for money by cooking up various excuses and the woman made nine cash transactions, totalling over RM170,400”.

Source: The Star

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/ ... ve-scammer

[winston]

He thought he’d won big on love and crypto. Instead, he was ‘pig butchered’ for RM1.21mil

By DEMIAN BULWA

A 68-year-old Santa Clara man, who had recently divorced and was struggling through financial problems, received a text message in February from a number he didn’t recognise.

When he responded, the stranger said her name was “Janey Lee”, that she was a Houston clothing designer, and that she had the wrong number.

The trap had been set, and “Lee” kept the conversation going via text before moving it to more secure channels: WhatsApp and Telegram.

“RB and Lee discussed personal information: their backgrounds, relationship statuses, businesses and finances,”.

“Within weeks, this budding relationship became romantic in nature, with Lee repeatedly messaging RB about their future together.”

Before long, Lee got to work. She (or perhaps he) shifted the conversation to her success in trading cryptocurrency.

By March, she had convinced RB to invest, too, helping him to create an account on the well-known trading platform Crypto.com, where he bought digital currency and sent it to “XTRA”, which appeared to be another legitimate crypto exchange.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle/Tribune News Service

https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-ne ... r-rm121mil

[winston]

New twist to Hong Kong dog meat sales scam as police find buyers of other products cheated, including man duped out for HK$415,000 over HK$25 instant noodles

Police say scammers deceived customers buying other products by urging them to download Android app for placing orders which allowed them to control users’ phones

Man responded to instant noodle advert on Facebook and transferred HK$25 through app’s fake banking page, before finding HK$415,000 had been stolen from him

by Lars Hamer and Oscar Liu

Source: SCMP

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/soc ... meat-sales