E-commerce platforms have risen in popularity amongst Singaporeans in recent years. Both customers and sellers often favour these websites to meet their needs and make an honest living.
However, if one isn’t careful, they can lose their money to scams.
Such was the case for a Singaporean man, who ended up losing the savings he had set aside for his daughter with special needs.
The man posted to Facebook on 24 Dec, sharing further details of his ordeal.
As they have five children, one of them a girl with special needs, he and his wife often deal with pre-loved items via Carousell to save on costs and get some liquidity in cash.
His wife posted a listing of an unused money box for S$15 and received a response from a keen buyer at 6.19pm.
The buyer stated that they wanted to arrange for Carousell Pay Protection, which will ensure they get a refund if the product doesn’t arrive or is damaged.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll pay first,” they added.
Source: Facebook
Although purchasing insurance for a S$15 item seemed strange, she let it slide, thinking he may have been scammed before.
Their past experiences with previous buyers and sellers have also been hassle-free thus far, the OP shared.
“We have been dealing with honest and reasonable people,” he stated. “We were complacent this time.”
The buyer then informed the OP’s wife that they had already made payment. For her to receive the money, all she would have to do was click on an email link.
Source: Facebook
She provided her husband’s email address, and he received it in his junk email. Without validating and verifying the email address, he clicked on the link.
The following page instructed him to log into his bank account to receive his payment. He clicked accordingly and what appeared to be DBS iBanking’s login page popped up.
The OP continued to log in, after which there was a loading page which stated that they were waiting for a response from the bank.
Source: Facebook
Not thinking much of the delay, the couple put their phones aside. Soon after, a chat box appeared on the OP’s phone while the page was “loading”, telling him to change his account.
His wife proceeded to log into her own account, upon which the OP’s phone requested an OTP which came from his wife.
Shortly after, the OP’s wife checked on the bank transaction and saw that the savings for their daughter with special needs had disappeared.
They also saw that their funds had been remitted in baht to a woman in Thailand.
The OP’s wife called DBS immediately, and after a long conversation, the officer informed them that they believed it was a scam.
They followed the instructions given and their bank accounts were subsequently frozen.
The couple then messaged the buyer, accusing him of being a scammer — to which they simply replied, “SPS.”
Source: Facebook
The account was suspended afterwards, and a police report was filed. The OP ended his post by stating that he knew his chances of getting the money back were slim.
Regardless, to share awareness, he urged both Carousell buyers and sellers to remain aware of such scammers, describing his experience as a painful lesson learnt.
MS News has reached out to the OP for more information.
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Featured image adapted from Forbes.
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