A 40-year-old administrative assistant falls victim to a fraudulent cleaning service scheme, mirroring another recent scam.
After a woman reported losing $4,300 to scammers posing as a house cleaning service, another victim has come forward, revealing that she lost over $20,000 through a similar scam. Ms. Ye was searching for a cleaning company on Facebook when she stumbled upon an advertisement offering a service for just $22 for a four-hour cleaning session every two weeks. Convinced it was an excellent deal, the 40-year-old administrative assistant provided her contact information.
The following day, Ms. Ye received a message from someone claiming to work for the company, who instructed her to download a specific app. Like the previous victim, Ms. Lu Meilin, who lost $4,300, Ms. Ye was asked to pay a “deposit” of $5 while entering her debit card details on the app. However, after entering her information, she received an error message stating her card was invalid.
“After I entered my card details, the app said my card was invalid. When I showed the staff, he asked me to try using a credit card instead,” Ms. Ye recounted to the Chinese-language news site Shin Min Daily News. Upon attempting this, she encountered the same error message and was prompted for another card. This raised red flags for her, and she refused further requests. Unfortunately, by that point, $21,000 had already been transferred from her account.
Her bank informed her that 15 transactions had occurred, with amounts ranging from $447 to $4,884. Ms. Ye has since filed a police report against the fraudulent cleaning service.
Ms. Lu’s experience closely mirrored that of Ms. Ye’s, although she provided details for just one card. In her case, three unauthorized transactions were made, totaling $4,300. Her bank contacted her to notify her that her card had reached its limit; had it not, additional fraudulent transactions could have occurred. Ms. Lu has canceled her card and filed a police report as well.
With scams on the rise, Singapore has established a dedicated website to provide up-to-date information regarding various scams, which can be found at www.scamalert.sg. The site lists the top five types of scams in Singapore, including job scams, phishing scams, online purchase scams, investment scams, and loan scams. It also offers resources for scam victims on how to report incidents online or in person.
Individuals with any information regarding scams are encouraged to contact the police hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness.
