Elderly woman scammed by scammers posing as Shopee staff & MAS officer
Just days after retirement, an elderly woman was scammed of S$100,000 in hard-earned retirement funds by a scammer.
The single 65-year-old woman, who declined to be named, told Shin Min Daily News that the scammers took her money after a four-hour-long phone call with her.
Source: Marjan Grabowski on Unsplash. Photo for illustration purposes only.
Elderly woman receives call from ‘Shopee customer service’
The woman received a phone call at about 6pm on 9 Jan from an unknown number, she said.
She typically never answered calls from unknown numbers, but she doesn’t know why she picked up the phone that day.
The person on the other side of the line said they were from Shopee customer service, notifying her that she hadn’t paid her insurance.
As she didn’t have a Shopee account, it was impossible for her to buy insurance from them, so she asked them to cancel.
They then transferred the call to a man named “Jason”.
‘Bank employee’ & ‘MAS officer’ call her
Jason called her via WhatsApp, with an account that had a UnionPay logo as its profile image, leading the woman to believe he was a bank employee.
He informed her that her bank account was suspected of being involved in money laundering and had to be transferred to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Source: Google Maps
Then, a supposed MAS officer called her via a WhatsApp account with the MAS logo as its profile image.
After the “MAS officer” spoke to her, they said Jason would call her again to solve the issue.
Jason instructed her to transfer cash to an account with digital bank GXS to “protect her funds”, so she downloaded the GXS app, opened an account and linked it to her United Overseas Bank (UOB) account.
Woman’s sister became worried when she stayed on the phone for hours
As the woman was talking to the scammers, her sister who lived with her became worried as she was on the phone for hours, even skipping dinner.
Her sister kept on telling her to put down the phone, but she appeared “hypnotised” by the scammers and continued following their instructions.
Eventually, the sister called the woman’s niece, a 52-year-old accountant named only as Ms Wu (transliterated from Mandarin).
When she arrived at about 10pm that night, her aunt was still talking to the scammer and was trying to log into another bank account.
Despite telling her that it was a scam, she refused to hang up until her niece hung up the phone for her.
S$100K transferred out of her account
Later, Ms Wu helped her check her GXS account and found that S$100,000 had been transferred out of it.
While the woman couldn’t remember the exact details, she recalled that two transactions were made from her UOB account, one for S$75,000 and the other for S$25,000.
Another three transfers didn’t go through as there was no more money in the account.
Thankfully, she couldn’t log in to another of her bank accounts as she had forgotten the password, she said.
The woman added that she had retired on 6 Jan and was scammed just days later.
The money she lost had been in a fixed deposit that expired last December and she hadn’t even had time to plan what to do with it before it got taken from her, she lamented.
Elderly woman makes police report about being scammed
After realising that she’d been scammed, she made a police report that night.
Source: Shin Min Daily News
She also cancelled her online banking account and change her phone number.
According to the bank, her transfer limit was set at S$5,000, so she’s not sure why S$100,000 could be transferred out.
The bank hasn’t responded to her about this yet, she said.
Woman not given time to verify info
She decided to tell her story to Shin Min to warn others about scams, she said, adding that she wasn’t given time to verify any information as the scammers kept on calling her.
One of them contacted her via video call and sounded “serious”, so she was frightened and wanted to protect her money quickly.
This caused her to follow their instructions step-by-step, unwaveringly, she added.
Also read: Elderly woman loses S$1.2M to scammers who posed as bank & police officers
Elderly woman loses S$1.2M to scammers who posed as bank & police officers
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Featured image adapted from Marjan Grabowski on Unsplash. Photo for illustration purposes only.
