Unusual Tagged Scam - Social Network Site Scam

With the emerging of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Tagged, we get to experience more scams than ever.

Many people have created fake social profiles for many reasons. Some people are addicted to the sites' games and need the extra boost from another account, while some are purely for marketing purpose. Many foreign ladies who are working as cam girls or social escorts have made their presence more than ever in the social networking sites, which is safer than getting clients at Geylang physically. There are also scams that con male users to sign up at certain cam sites, which require their credit cards information.

Details of all these scams and how to identify them will be given in future blog posts.

In this post, we will share with you an unusual scam incident...

While most of the scam targets are male users of the social networking sites, photos of female users and hot celebrities are often being stolen and uploaded into the bogus user accounts. By pretending as hot girls, male users are likely to add or accept them as friends, and thus increasing the prey list.

However, this time, we have received a complaint about a scammer stealing picture of a male user in Tagged.

This scammer has uploaded 2 photos. The first photo is http://i7.tagstat.com/image06/0/5602/0008054s5o2.jpg, which seems to be stolen from Facebook from https://fbcdn-photos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/32097_398059863710_589113710_3979120_8259239_n.jpg and the scammer is too lazy to rename the caption, which shows the filename by default, so that we are able to find the original photo. However, we are unable to do reverse search for the Facebook profile of the original photo for further investigation.

This is the print-screen of the fake profile.

The Tagline "young and curious :)" would relate to perverts, who are hinting at girls that they are curious about sexual stuffs.

It seems that the scammer has registered the fake account since more than a year ago, but his Profile Views is sadly standing at only 704 times after being reported and friends of the victim has visited it.

This is probably the reason why the scammer has to steal another photo and use it to attract more girls.

The scammer's friends list currently has 80 friends, of which, more than 90% are female. Through his sexy Tagline, it is highly possible that the account is created to target female users who are open-minded and want to "try out" young guys who are curious about sex.

He has tried to get females to add him in MSN using the email lawrencex789@gmail.com.

We urge female users of social networking sites to beware of fakers. It is absolutely nothing wrong to make friends online and even date with your net friends, but we hope you will not end up meeting some old and fat guys who have shown you some hunks' photos.

We would also like to urge users to try to put watermark on their photos before uploading to their social profiles. It will reduce the chance of being stolen. Even if the scammers were to edit the photos to remove the watermarks, the photo size and quality will be affected, and thus it is easier for you to complain to the staffs of the social network sites to prove the ownership of the original photo.

Online Scams Regarding Pets Adoption

There is a demand for pets adoption since it is usually much cheaper than buying directly from pet shops and this will aid in saving the pets from being abandoned by helpless owners who somehow cannot keep their pets anymore. Other than the price, some pets are rare in Singapore and can only be imported from other countries.

In many cases, people breed pets specially to just for sales. They place advertisements online and claim "pets for adoption" and demand for adoption fee. "Adoption" is a term which has been badly abused by these pet sellers.

Recently, a lady was searching online to buy a kitten and she was almost being scammed. Somehow, she got into the Singapore news to share with everyone about the fraud.

In fact, this type of pet adoption scam has been ongoing since years ago. It is quite surprising that finally a person has stepped out to educate the public about it.

The pet scam's plot is simple: The "owner" of the pet will claim that the pet is for free but demand for a fee to transport the pet over from a foreign country. He/she will also promise to take care of all necessary documentation and arrangements to ensure that the pet is being delivered right at the buyer's house. After the buyer transfers the demanded fee over, the "owner" will go missing.

New scam techniques may have evolved.

We hope online shoppers will take extra precaution in buying things, especially from foreign sellers. This should also be applicable to online shoppers from all other countries.

Don't be a prey of scam.

Do donate your money to charity organisation instead of being conned.

NTUC Voucher - Bounced Cheque Scam

On Thursday, 17 November 2011, two men aged 19 and 22 had used a bounced cheque to buy $500,000 worth of NTUC FairPrice vouchers at FairPrice's head office in Upper Thomson Road.

Somehow, the standard procedure for issuing vouchers that required cheque payment to be cleared first was not followed. The two men were apprehended near Hougang Street 91 and Bukit Batok East Avenue 4 on Saturday, 19 November 2011. $15,000 worth of vouchers had already been used.

The NTUC vouchers serial numbers ranges from 607379330 to 607404329.

This is, in fact, a very weird scam incident that has taken place in Singapore where crime rate is rather low. The ages of the criminals are young and what makes a person not has a slight suspicion about their financial status? What makes this scam more interesting is that it involves such a huge sum of money and yet the FairPrice's staff has made such a huge mistake.

$500,000 is around the cost of a HDB 5-room flat, which Singapore couples have to work over 30 years in order to repay the loan. If such big amount of sales cannot be handled properly, how about smaller sales?

We hope all companies, including those from other countries, would take precaution of such cheque scam. Never release your product or voucher until the bank has confirmed that the cheque has been cleared.

Singapore Web Hosting

This is not so much of a scam but we just want you to take note of it; sometimes, scam is just some inches away from the borderline mark that separates ignorance.

For some reasons, some companies or individuals would want to get a Singapore webhost to host their websites. The greatest benefit is due to geographic location. Obviously, if your target audiences are based in Singapore, you would want to get a Singapore web hosting service so that your visitors can load your pages faster since they are staying in Singapore as well. This is because it will take less time for the data to be sent to the browsers compared to having your server stationed at overseas.

For some reasons, it is so annoyingly that Singapore's web hosting costs much more than web hosting services from other countries. We can assume that land space, equipments and manpower are very expensive in Singapore. Perhaps, foreign webhosting companies may be larger in size and can afford to get equipments in bigger quantity (bulk purchase) and thus cheaper.

Here comes the problem...

A Singapore web hosting company may not have its web servers physically located in Singapore.

The web hosting company may be owned by Singaporean or has its office in Singapore, but it does not mean that their servers are placed in Singapore. The company can also be an affiliate of other foreign web hosting companies.

Therefore, if you are looking for a Singapore web hosting service, do spend some time to look through the company's website or check with the staff regarding the physical location of their web servers. If the location of the web server is not of a concern to you, you may as well subscribe to the service of a foreign company, which can reduce your cost quite a lot.

If you are looking for a Singapore web host, we would recommend Vodien. Its basic plan is at SGD $8, which is one of the cheapest you can get for the specification. Most of all, their support team is really prompt, friendly and professional.

Electronic Pickpocketing - Credit Card Scam

It's called electronic pickpocketing and security expert Walt Augustinowicz says relatively new technology designed to make your purchases more convenient could put your credit card number at risk.


In a mall in New York City, Augustinowicz showed INSIDE EDITION's Paul Boyd how it can happen. In a matter of seconds, he effortlessly pickpockets four unsuspecting shoppers without ever laying a finger on their purses or wallets.


Now, you should always be on alert whenever someone places something near your pocket or bag, or wherever you keep your wallet at. It can be a scam to steal your credit card information. It can happen in overseas and it can also happen in anywhere if you are using similar credit cards.

Fire Extinguisher Scam in Singapore

During September 2011, this lady was seen in Tanjong Pagar (Singapore) area, trying to sell fire extinguisher.

Door-to-door sales in HDB (Housing Development Board) flats was never uncommon but this lady was trying to deceive the residents by providing false information.

First, she introduced herself as a representative from SCDF (Singapore Civil Defence Force).

Second, she told the residents that SCDF would implement a law that every household should have a fire extinguisher by year 2012.

She claimed that she was selling fire extinguisher at a cheaper price before the law was implemented.

What she was trying to do was to instinct fears in the residents so that they would buy fire extinguishers from her.

The residents called the SCDF directly to check and they were told that SCDF did not send anyone to sell fire extinguishers. Whereas, there was no plan on the law that every residential household should own a fire extinguisher.

The residents went after the lady who was trying to use the same tactic to con their neighbours.

They demanded her to show them her ID card again but she refused. She then declared that she was from an agency representing SCDF and that she was not directly working under SCDF. They followed her as she continued her scam. Soon she knew they meant business and quickly left the place.

This lady was lucky that the neighbourhood police centre, after receiving the complaint through phone call, did not send officer down immediately to investigate.