Friday, January 27, 2012

Mobile Phone Scams in Singapore

The mobile phone scam has happened in a mobile phone shop.

The scammer offers to sell the shop owner some mobile phones at a lower price. The shop owner will examine the condition of the mobile phones, which are perfect.

After they have reached an agreement, the scammer pretends to help the owner to wrap the phones up while the owner is busy attending to customers. Meanwhile, the scammer will swap the genius mobile phones with some China-made ones.

It takes some weeks for the owner to discover that the mobile phones have been swapped.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Fake Gold Scams in Singapore

The fake gold scam is usually involved with older people who have some saving for investment.

The scammer will approach the victim and gain some trust from him. Then the scammer will tell the victim that he has found some gold or jewelry that he is not sure how to convert to cash.

In some cases, the scammers have pretended to be a distant relative of the victims and tell the victims that they work in a construction site and have found a bag of gold while at work.

The scammer will show the victim a real gold as sample and get it verified at goldsmith to prove its authentic. After which, the victim will offer to sell the whole of it to the victim for a cheaper price than the market value.

In such scam, the amount of money involved can be very big amount.

We hope there will be fewer victims. Do share this with your family and friends.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Tagged Scammer Lawrence Tan Failed

The tagged scammer's account, which we have reported last year, has finally been removed by Tagged on around 9th January 2012.

Initially, the owner of the photo stolen by this scammer had tried to email Tagged as indicated in their website. After the first respond of Tagged to ask for a recent photo of the owner/victim, all emails sent to them were "bounded" back. There was totally no way to contact the staffs for assistance as they did not even have a "contact us" form.


This Lawrence Tan scammer eventually strike using the mobile phone chat feature of Tagged to try to hook up with the victim's friend (he obviously didn't know their relationship) and she managed to make him divulge his MSN email (lawrencex789@gmail.com), and thus pawning himself.

He could have been considering to abandon that email address ever since...


Anyway, if you were to google for the email lawrencex789@gmail.com, you can probably find him being involved in an adult forum, which is mainly in Chinese language. A brief investigation of the website shows that it displays photos and contact numbers of China women who come over to Singapore to make extra money.

You can probably guess what Lawrence has been up to all these years.

Before Lawrence Tan's Tagged account was removed, probably with the aid of the victim's friends who had helped to report him, he had uploaded and changed his default photo to a picture of a dance floor. He had removed another victim's photo from his profile but still keeping the latter one.

Girls, please be aware of the people you make friends with through the internet. If they were to add you up in MSN or other messengers such as Yahoo or Skype, make sure they have webcam to prove that the photos in their social network profiles really belong to them.

Please do not be fooled by guys with big belly, sitting in front of their computers and getting satisfied by online teasing or whatever.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Geylang Durian Scam

Durian is one of Singaporeans' favourite fruits. Many foreigners love to try it when they come over to Singapore. You can get a durian for as low as $0.50 but some may cost near a hundred dollars. Many good breed durians come from Malaysia and they are exported over to Singapore instead of being sold over their homeland due to profit and affordability.

The most famous durian stalls are located in Geylang, which is one of the night food paradises in Singapore, although the place has being polluted by many foreign female money-seekers.


On 14 January 2012, a group of Singaporeans decided to have a small durian feast at Geylang, at the stall nearest to Kallang MRT station. They were very inexperienced in choosing durians and requested the salesman to give some recommendations. The man led them to the most expensive breed in the stall known as "Mao Shan Wang". Considering that the price of $30 per kilogram was too expensive, they wanted to just get one "Mao Shan Wang", together with other cheaper ones.

When being asked for the rough weight of each "Mao Shan Wang" durian, the man told them it was just over one kilogram. The man managed to persuade them to get two of them when they thought the total weight would not exceed three kilograms, given the estimation from the man.


The man first opened one durian for one of the ladies to try, followed by the second one just to show them that its flesh was good. He offered to give them a third durian as a complimentary gift.

Finally, the man put the two opened durians on the weighing machine and quoted them $150. This meant that the total weight of the two durians were around five kilograms, which was two kilograms or 66 percent more than the estimated amount.

The group of Singaporeans were stunned by the price and decided to just buy one instead. However, the man told them that the durians were already opened and they had to pay for both of them. He also told them that they could pay by NETS.

1 The estimated weight of the durians from the experienced salesman was far too off from the actual weight - 66% was really ridiculous.

2. The group of inexperienced Singaporeans looked young and they were dressed in plain clothes after a very sweaty day. They obviously looked not-rich-enough to want to spend over $100 just for durians, which the salesman should roughly guess and advise.

3. The salesman should weigh the durians before opening both of them.

This scam incident serves as a lesson for everyone, including foreigners, that you should never trust durian sellers completely. If the prices of the durians are determined by weight instead of the normal "1 for $5", "3 for $10" or "3 for $20", you better make sure the seller weigh the durians before you agree to "test" the durian.

Of course, if you are wealthy enough and do not mind being extorted, you can take the easy way out.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Online Dating Scams - Appeal by "tagged convictim"

Below is an appeal from a victim of an online scam known as "tagged convictim". Although she did not indicate, we have reason to believe that she has met the scammer through the social networking website - Tagged.com.

If you are a victim of similar case, do report to the police immediately.

If the scammer you have encountered is similar to the guy as described by the victim, do leave a comment at the bottom of this blog entry.


I met a guy a few months ago and he claimed he love me and won my heart within days. In fact, he proposed right after our first meeting and was doing everything a girl dream for. He drove around in luxurious sport cars and claimed he has many businesses. (I guess his story would be different for every case). It wasnt money that made me fell in love with him but the charisma and attentiveness he possess. Whatever it is, for my case, he claimed he bought a house for us and even showed me evidences, etc. Days later he asked for a loan due to cash flow problems. I felt I was the cause of his problem and loan him a huge sum of money. He then disappeared and said he's too ashamed to face anyone. His identity is faked and contact numbers are not registered under his name. He has been doing this for a few years and I believe there are many victims out there. He has been caught recently and now on bail. I am looking for more girls to stand up to seek justice.

Description of him: 33/Chinese/Singaporean, about 176cm, fat with short hair (with long gold fringe) and the most distinctive feature is his two broken front teeth. He is always in tshirt and bermudas and mostly driving a black Nissan.

Please drop me a message if you think you are one of the victims. Contacts will be confidential. May justice prevail.

Friday, January 6, 2012

ATM and Debit Cards Scams - DBS / POSB bank - Unauthorised Withdrawal

For the past few days, there have been reports of unauthorised withdrawal from some DBS/POSB bank users' bank accounts.

This picture belongs to one of the victims, Amanda Goh.

The money was used or taken in Malaysia. Each transaction also deducted SGD $5 from the owner's account since it was done in overseas as a service charge by the bank(s). The owners' original ATM/debit cards were still with them.

There are some possible reasons why this has happened. The bank or merchant stores that accept the card payment may be hacked, or maybe, someone has duplicated the ATM / debit card, possibility during the process of payment.

All POSB/DBS bank users are advised to check their bank accounts daily for the next few days or weeks until any security loophole is being found and fixed.

The DBS / POSB bank has announced that they would return the "stolen" money back to the owners and thus users are advised not to panic and start withdrawing all money from their bank accounts.

Should anyone suspect that his/her ATM or debit cards may have been compromised should contact the bank immediately on 1800-220-1111 or visit any DBS/POSB branch.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Online Social Networking Website Scams

Social networking websites refer to websites such as Facebook and MySpace, which allows friends to link up together via the internet.

Many couples have started dating after knowing each other through such websites. Social networking websites are mediums that allow shy people to approach and make friends with others.

Recently, through the main stream media, there are more reports of scammers from foreign countries who target Singaporean ladies. They make friends with the ladies through the internet and their patience allows the ladies to believe in them after months of online interaction.

The usual scammers will try to con the victims to transfer money to them or their counterparts directly. Such tactic has already been ongoing for many years.

The latest trick of the scammers is to plan to drop by Singapore to visit the victims. They will pretend to be detained by the immigrant officers for under-declare the amount of money they have brought along. Then the "immigrant officers" will call the ladies to ask them to bail the scammers out by doing bank transfer of money.

The Singapore police force has clearly reminded everyone that the authorities in Singapore do not accept any bank transfer of money for bail or fine.

Everyone should be aware of such scam. Similar scams may also evolve any time as well. Do take care of your family and friends, and educate them on online scam.

Do not let love overrule your brain. It is not easy to establish cross-border relationship and most people will not be serious about it.