S’pore Cleaner Allegedly Loses S$330K Of Life Savings To Scammers, Police Investigations Ongoing

Singapore Cleaner Allegedly Loses S$330K Savings To Chinese Scammers

Many of us would make it a point to save a portion of our earnings, so we’ll have resources to tide us through rainy days.

Considering the time and effort that go into this, it’s only understandable to feel distraught when we see our savings vanish into thin air.

That was sadly what happened to an elderly cleaner in Singapore, who lost his life savings worth S$330,000 to Chinese scammers within just weeks.

Though a police report has been lodged, the cleaner’s brother hopes that the bank will be able to reimburse a portion of the losses as a form of goodwill.

Singapore cleaner receives call from scammers requesting cooperation

Speaking to Shin Min Daily News, 62-year-old Zhang Hancheng (transliterated from Chinese) said he fell for the scam last November.

While serving his Covid-19 quarantine, he reportedly received a phone call from the ‘Shanghai police’ asking him to cooperate with money laundering investigations.

Upon hearing this, Mr Zhang panicked and forgot that he had never been to Shanghai, let alone set up a bank account in the city.

A few days later, the elderly cleaner received two letters from the Chinese and Shanghai authorities, which convinced him further that he was the subject of a legit investigation.

Recounting the incident, Mr Zhang said he received instructions to open a new bank account and grant access to the ‘authorities’. This would purportedly allow them to check for links to money laundering operations.

The scammers also allegedly instructed Mr Zhang not to tell anyone about the new bank account and warned him that they had already installed a bug on his phone.

Scammers wipe cleaner’s S$330,000 clean

After his quarantine, the 62-year-old reportedly visited a bank to carry out the instructions. This included disclosing his one-time password (OTP) and transferring S$60,000 to the new account.

When he attempted to withdraw money a month later on 7 Dec, Mr Zhang was horrified to find that his savings of about S$330,000 – which he took 50 years to accumulate – had dwindled to just S$49.

His bank records showed that the scammers withdrew about S$14,000 on 15 Nov before making seven transactions on 23 Nov.

Even though Mr Zhang received SMSes informing him of the transactions, he apparently did not understand what they meant.

Shin Min Daily reported that Mr Zhang felt hurt after the incident and could not bring himself to eat. He also blamed himself for falling prey to such a scheme despite hearing about them all the time.

Bank purportedly rejected request for reimbursement

Mr Zhang’s brother reportedly accompanied him to lodge a police report on 8 Dec.

The older Zhang also got in touch with the bank to discuss the matter.

Claiming that his brother normally withdraws just S$200, he questioned why the bank did not freeze the account despite the large transactions.

As such, he hoped that the bank would be able to reimburse a portion of the losses as a form of goodwill.

Unfortunately, the request was reportedly turned down by the bank in February.

In response to Shin Min Daily’s queries, the police shared that they’re currently investigating the case.

Hope police will be able to bring those responsible to task

Despite the measures in place and the advisories that have been making rounds, it seems there are still people falling victim to such financial scams.

In this case, we can only imagine how distressing it must’ve been for Mr Zhang to see his savings completely wiped out.

While the situation looks grim at the moment, we hope the authorities will be able to somehow apprehend the crooks responsible for this elaborate scam and hopefully return Mr Zhang his hard-earned savings.

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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News.