www.streetdeal.sg Premium Membership Scam

"I was charged $88 on my credit card by Streetdeal.sg so I called up my bank to check what transaction this was as I did not recall having made any purchases recently on their website. Was informed by the bank that this is the membership fee that they have imposed on all their "premium" members which I never knew I was. Did not receive any notification from Streetdeal that they would be charging me. They just went ahead and did it. Emailed them to request for a refund as I had no intention of being their premium member, and this was their reply:"

Greetings from StreetDeal.

As per the company's discretion, the membership has been revised and there has been a change in the membership fee effecting from 1st January 2014.

As such, all our Premium customers are changed from the annual membership fee to the quarterly membership fee.

Thus, you are charged for the new quarterly membership fee of $88.

In the meantime if you should have any inquires please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you,

Theepa Magantharan | Customer Service Executive | StreetDeal Singapore Pte Ltd

W: www.streetdeal.sg | E: info@streetdeal.sg

T: +65 6361 0888 | F: +65 6535 7882

305 Alexandra Road | #05-15 Vantage Automotive Centre | Singapore 159942

The email stated that this $88 is a QUARTERLY fee. I have since cancelled my card and requested my bank to do a chargeback. Googled online and realised that many people have been cheated already, so want to spread this to as many people as possible. In addition, I have been leaving comments on their Facebook page for them to return me my money but they have been deleting my comments and blocking me from seeing others' comments.

As reported in:
http://therealsingapore.com/content/streetdealsg-still-scamming-customers-charging-99-their-credit-card
https://www.facebook.com/StreetdealSingaporeConsumersInterest
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/customers-complain-about-streetdeal-singapore-%E2%80%98trap%E2%80%99--company-responds-093640798.html

Jamie Yeo Impersonate - Michelle

http://www.tagged.com/profile.html?uid=5462741101

This fake account was created a couple of years back and remained "quiet". The one and only photo she had uploaded obviously was Jamie Yeo, our Singapore celebrity. Doing a google search would show the photo.

Some girls are extremely low in confidence due to their looks and they would add celebrities' photos inside their social media profiles to "trick" guys into contacting them. However, this "Michelle" played fool and insisted the photo was her. It was obvious she was up to no good but we were really too busy to go on and find out her motive.

After getting exposed, "she" cleared her friend list and her only remaining friend was "Lynette W".

We are not sure if "Lynette W", created on October 4, 2013, is a real or fake profile. "She" does log into her profile but has not cleared her friend request. Scammers who have created a number of fake profiles in Tagged normally do not have time to work on the profiles.

Facebook Scam: IPhone Video - Rihanna and Chris Brown S xtape Leaked Today

"The Facebook post: "[iPhone VIDEO] Rihanna & Chris Brown S xtape Leaked Today," is a scam created to trick Facebook users into completing surveys, "liking" or sharing a fake Facebook website. The post promises Facebook users a leaked sex IPhone video of Rihanna and Chris Brown", only if they "like" or share the same website. But, there is no video."

"It is this fake Facebook website that the scammers want you to "like" or share, which will make it popular. Once the page is popular, these scammers can sell it to online marketers or other scammers. They will also make money from the surveys that are completed by gullible Facebook users who were tricked into completing them."

Source: onlinethreatalerts.com/

Please let your friend know if he/she has shared it!

Modelling Scams in Singapore

Becoming a model is many girls' dream. Isn't it good that people are paying you because you look good? It definitely makes you stand out from the rest of the common people. Besides, you will get quite a good pay!

However, not many models can really make it to the top. Many local models are simply doing freelance photo shoot and events.

Scammers start to take advantages of the desires of young girls online. Fake social media profiles, such as Facebook accounts, are created and the scammers start hunting for their preys.



Which modelling job will require the client to touch the model?

We have no idea why scammers are doing this when they can pay for willing parties at Geylang and probably at cheaper rate that they have offered to the models online (if they are really paying). Perhaps, they find models more appealing?

We hope everyone would continue to warn model-wannabe friends of such scam. Note that this can and has probably been happening in all around the world.

Beware of Online Selling Scam from Foreign Countries

Recently, there is a growing number of advertisements from suspicious users posted in our local forums for sales of photography gears. The prices that they have offered are quite amazing and the items are new (the forums' sections are actually meant to be for sales of refurnished items). Their member accounts are also new.

When we tried to clarify with one of them, the person told us we had to make payment online while the actual item is located in foreign country.

As a matter of fact, parallel import goods may be cheaper than local ones, partly because of non-local warranty or lower tax; however, if the item cost less than 50% of local price, you should really beware of the catch.

As our local police force may not be able to deal with criminals in every foreign country, we advise everyone not to try luck in all the cheap offers. If it happens that you send the payment via online transfer and the seller does not mail the item over as promised, it may be beyond anyone's help.

Will you purchase electronic items via online from Kazakhstan or Pakistan?

If you have purchased items from such sellers and realised you have been conned, do post your encounter in the comment section below. Meanwhile do spread about this and encourage your friends many things are too good to be real.

Spreading of False Information to Create Public Panic

Although social media has helped people from all over the world to share news instantly and counter false news from mainstream media of countries that are being controlled by their autocratic rulers, there are also attempts of users using it to create public panic.

Accordingly to Yahoo!SG Newsroom, someone has tried to spread rumours about food from Thailand.

We hope the culprit will be taken to court soon.

HOAX ALERT
The AVA has confirmed with the Thai embassy that the following message is untrue:

Emergency notification:
Try not to eat canned food especially those canned fruits manufactured from thailand . There were 200 over HIV carriers instructed by their leader to contaminate the products of the canned food factory by their blood.
The information was confirmed by the government this morning. In order not to let the people get infected after eating, many types of canned food had been removed from the shelves of the supermarkets.such as longan, lychee, rambutan and mango pudding.
Pls send to people you care. Prevention is better than cure! Pls don't buy canned food from thailand.

Please refrain from spreading it further.

Crime Prevention Advisory on Cyber Extortion

From Singapore Police Force facebook page:

Police have received several reports on cyber extortion recently.

These cases usually involve female suspects who attempt to extort money by threatening to post compromising photos or videos of victims, mostly males, following an online cyber-sex session over a web camera. The victims are coaxed into undressing and performing indecent acts in front of a webcam. The process is video recorded and the males are blackmailed thereafter. In most cases, the female suspects are believed to be based overseas.

The female suspects would usually get acquainted with the male victims via social networking websites like Tagged.com, Skype or Facebook. The public is advised to take the following preventive measures when interacting online:

i) Be wary of messages from unknown people who want to befriend you.

ii) Do not accede to any request that may put you in vulnerable positions, such as performing compromising acts in front of the webcam, or giving personal details about yourself when interacting with other internet users.

iii) If anyone attempts to extort money from you or should you become a victim of such an attempt, call the police immediately.

iv) Do not remit or transfer money.

For more information and advisory on cyber extortion, please view Crimewatch 2013 Episode 4 @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrapCuor4rQ

Twitter Account Spamming for Yahoo IDs

This spam Twitter account has caught our attention. It seems to be automatically mentioning other users the exact same tweet, except that there are various Yahoo IDs that are being randomly generated from a list.

@YOUR_TWITTER_USERNAME Random but my friend Adriana seen your pics, is her yahoo name add her online she thinks your hot

The scammer has made it too obvious for dumb Twitter users to fall into the trick as once you open his/her page, you can see similar tweets for other users. How many female friends do this "person" has who, at the same period of time, happen to think so many Twitter users are hot and willing to share with him/her?

We have no idea what is the scam about but it definitely is seeking all potential victims to email or add the "babe" in Yahoo Messenger.

Anyway, some of the Yahoo IDs listed are of following:

stimulating890babe
bieber72chick
adri18stunning
sugar2audriana91
angel89adriana
beach7983babe
animatedadriana826
bad1660female
cute50adriana
adri96stunning
stunning73adri
bad7193female
softball91chick
loyal727chick
pretty2937pink
emo6865adriana
emo73gurl
love4514adriana
cute50adriana
loyal813chick
cute50adriana
bieber26chick
adriana5537ocean
bad1660female
sweet8944sexy
erotic35chick
adrianalove4999
pinkforever11girl

Note that there are some similarities in the user IDs. The Yahoo accounts could be created via certain software that has managed to break into Yahoo's registration spam protection.

We hope this has helped to broaden your skill in exposing fake Twitter accounts.

Joey's Fake Tagged Profile - Alice T

http://www.tagged.com/profile.html?uid=5977415234

This is Joey's fake Tagged profile under the name of "Alice T". She doesn't have any Tagged profile at this point of time.

This profile is likely created for playing of the Pets game.

If you have anymore detail or interaction with this fake profile, do update us.

Some Fake Tagged Profiles

In the past few months, the number of fake profiles who have posted status in Tagged.com has probably exceeded the number of real ones. However, we have observed some people exposing them directly or indirectly by commenting on the statuses. Sometimes, it's simply humorous.

Anyway, excluding those very obvious scammers who are using foreigners' photos in their fake profiles, we have found some profiles that are using real Singapore girls' photos.

Real owner of photos: Maybeline
http://www.tagged.com/profile.html?uid=5986731523

Real owner of photos: Unknown
http://www.tagged.com/profile.html?uid=5981398712

Real owner of photos: Bella Choi
http://www.tagged.com/profile.html?uid=5980965870

Real owner of photos: Jamie Ang
http://www.tagged.com/profile.html?uid=5987371041

Real owner of photos: Kelly Chin
http://www.tagged.com/profile.html?uid=5984120713

Do help us to report on their profiles - we know Tagged has made it quite tough to report though.

Happy Valentine's Day - Find Tagged Fake Profiles

Hey everyone! Happy Valentine's Day!

This entry is a little Valentine's Day present for you as we will be touching up on a simple way to discover some of the fake social network profiles. Of course, this is just a small portion of them.

For Tagged.com (or Facebook) users who have added many "chiobus" in your account, there is a very high possibility that many profiles in your friend list are fake. There are many types of scammers in Tagged.com and luckily, scammers who sign up for additional fake accounts are mainly for the sake of playing the Pets game to increase their Pet values. Apart from that, there are scammers who use fake accounts to spam for their services and websites, including for whatever "swingers' parties". Some fake profiles are more "deadly" since they are used to fool horny guys to show off their private parts in webcam before extorting the lost sheep, while a few are owned by oversized girls who is lack of attention from guys.

We have a Tagged.com account with quite a large number of "female" friends. If you own an account as well, you would know that Tagged.com would give notification if any of your friends' birthdays falls on the current day. Usually, we have ten to twenty friends who have the same birthday on each day but we have a surprise on Valentine's Day.



We actually have 41 friends who have the same birthday and it happens to fall on Valentine's Day, which is so amazing!

This is actually not something very coincident as parents do not specially pick this day to give birth - at least to say, they cannot control the exact birth date. According to our analysis of scammers, 14th February is a good birthday because it gives others a romantic feeling. More guys would send you a message with: "Hey! You're born on Valentine's Day and you must be a very romantic girl!" At least, there will be a much higher chance that they would have such fantasy.

Therefore, if you screen through your Tagged or Facebook account, you may find some suspicious friends. For our Tagged.com account, we have blocked around 10 of them who are obviously created for the Pets game. Tagged.com makes it difficult to remove friends as they do not have a link on individual profile page to do that and thus the easiest approach we can take is to block the scammer while he/she remains in our friends list. As for Facebook, the famous fake profile "Natalia Mmk" and another, "Ling Aiting", which we have yet to expose in this blog do have birthday falling on this romantic day as well.

Catching the fakers by birthday can be applied to those who are "born" on first day of the year as well. Many scammers are lazy to think of a date and thus, they would leave the birthday as 1st January. It is also safer to use this date in case the social network would challenge the user for birthday in order to recover the account in some cases.

However, do take note that there are certainly real people who are born on these days too. If you are in doubt, just initiate a chat with "her" and she will be exposed soon with her real motive if she is a fake account.

Margaux Lee - Webcam Extortion Scam

Dear all, we have just being notified of another scam Facebook account by the name of "Margaux Lee". "She" is probably doing the same scam as "Jacky Lee". That means she is getting guys to go onto webcam for some "fun" and get them to show their private parts. After recording the indecent acts, she would start to extort the guys for money, threatening to upload the videos online.

We have found a suspicious account (https://www.facebook.com/margaux.lee.12) in Facebook but cannot confirm if it is the same account as mentioned. It seems that this user is a Pinoy "staying" in Singapore.

Please educate all your family members and friends about such scam. Our hearts are too fragile to see more people falling for similar plot.

Looking for Victim of Blogshop Scam

Dear readers,

A producer from MediaCorp has approached us for help to search for a victim of blogshop scam for one of their programmes.

We believe the programme would help to enlighten/alert other Singaporeans and foreigners. Thus, if you were a victim of a blog shop scam, or you have a friend who has experienced it, do contact us with your name and contact number. We would forward your contact directly to Manoj, the producer.

Please do not type your contact details into this blog entry's comment.

Below is the email we have received.

Hello,

My name is Manoj and I am a producer at MediaCorp. I am currently working on the webisodes for an upcoming Channel 5 series.

Basically the webisodes aim to educate youth on internet based activities. One of the themes we are highlighting is blogshop scams.

As your website is established for being against online scams in Singapore, I was wondering if you could recommend someone whom we could feature in our webisode. The person should have been a victim of an online scam involving a blogshop.

I hope you would be keen on collaborating with us. If you are keen, please do contact me at [email removed to avoid sender from being spammed]

Looking forward to hearing a positive reply from you.

Manoj

Twitter Direct Message Scam

If you are an active Twitter user, you would have probably received direct message (DM) from a few of the people you are following.

hey this person is writing cruel things that are about you http://URL
hey this person is making up dreadful things that are about you http://URL
hey this user is writing offensive posts that are about you http://URL

These are similar to the previous Twitter DM scam. Please do not click on the URL at the back of the message.

Do warn your friend about it if you have received similar message from him/her.

In fact, we are quite surprised that such hoax is able to sustain for so long with more preys falling for the trick, causing an "explosive" effect.

Another Online Shopping Scam

We have seen a scam alert posted by Facebook user Joan Ter who is a victim of an online shopping scam.

Please beware of the scammer. As extracted from the Facebook post:

Hi All,

DO NOT buy anything from the seller holding bank account no. 073-27352-8.

PLEASE SHARE THIS MESSAGE ON YOUR FB PAGE TO PREVENT OTHERS TO FALL INTO HIS/HER TRAP !!! THANK YOU
...
This happen on myself on 02 Sept 12, I've ordered a luggage from Hong Gadget. Till now I still haven't received the item and I'm blocked from his/her FB right after payment was done. After few of my friends trying to help me to PM him/her, my friends was blocked as well and he/her change her FB name to Sumiko Gadget.

We spread the picture around and today we found out that he/her created another FB account to con buyers. I add Loewe Sim as friend after I suspect he/she is Hong/Sumiki Gadget coz all the pictures of the items are 100% similar from Hong/Sumiko Gadget. Immediately he blocked me. So I ask my friend (which is already in his new FB account) to purchase an item and ask for bank account number for payment.

And confirm that he is the same person who con me. I have already made a police report, I hope those who have conned by him/her will also make a police report and have this person nab!

Online Scams Targeting Blogshop Owners

This is similar to another Customer Scam on E-Commerce Website.

Blog Shop owners should take note of this.

Here is a Credit card scam that they are doing. They order from 1800.00 to 5000.00 dollars worth of product off your website by credit card. The billing and shipping address match. As soon as the order it, They want you to ship it immediately, and wear you out daily about getting the product shipped asap. It is obvious now that it was a stolen credit card because 30 days later, you will get a no authorization to purchase against your shopping cart. I was using pay-pal pro processor for my shopping cart which handles credit cards but does not give you any seller protection which I found out later.They only do seller protect on Pay-pal only and not all the time. Once the no authorization hits, pay-pal takes that amount out of your account immediately. They then fight for you to resolve the issue with the credit card company. With out letting the whole world know the outcome, the bottom line is the scammer has the product. You paid for the product and then your account gets hits for the entire amount when the no authorized purchase contacts pay-pal which puts you negative for what ever the amount was. If you send some product out, they tell their buddies and what happen to me is that 5 of them ordered product all before the first no authorization hit which means there was money and product going everywhere and in the end you have no protection on the orders, the product that did get sent you will no longer see and you will be responsible for the money on it. This has been a horrible and very expensive scam that was done to me and all I did was have products to sell on the internet from my website. My site has some very expensive items , so it did not take many items to really rack up the money which has all fallen on me. Now, I can no longer take a order from a legitimate customer because my pay-pal is in the negative. If a order comes in, it just makes my account less negative. Then you would have to try and chase that money down. It has been a nightmare to say the least. A lot of the times they ask if you take credit cards as the first email. Be very careful as these Singapore scammers are probably from Indonesia or Malaysia using freight forward addresses at the airport in Singapore. All the address's were on Airport Rd, Bldg. what ever. BEWARE..

Online Shopping Scams - Monroe Trends

One reader of ours is being scammed by a Facebook account selling MAC brushes and other cosmetics.

Be careful of Monroe Trends on Facebook selling MAC brushes and other cosmetics. Profile has been deleted but there might be similar scams online.

After transferring $, seller came back with an offer to buy 2 products at a discounted price. I agreed and transferred more $. Said delivery will take about 1-2 weeks as items are from Canada warehouse.

Seller then deleted facebook account and all I have is the account number. POSB SAVINGS :145-14097-8

Please be careful when shopping online, especially with individual sellers.

I got burnt this time :(

For online blogshop or Facebook page shopping, it is good to get recommendation from friends.

Nude Video Scam - Alexander Soh Zhi Ren

The 22-year-old man, Alexander Soh Zhi Ren, who has worked with his then 16-year-old girlfriend, Yap Siew Ting, for the nude webcam scam, is sentenced to jail for five years and ordered to be given five strokes of the cane for various offences.

He has pleaded guilty to 10 of 23 charges, including theft, forgery and handling of stolen goods.

Yap Siew Ting is given probation for the webcam nude video scam.

Customer Scam on E-Commerce Website

We have received this scam story from a visitor "Bouncer". He is probably a foreigner who owns an e-commerce website. The "customer" would purchase items from him, paying him via PayPal. After receiving the goods, the "customer" would file report that the purchase is unauthorized and thus getting back the money while able to keep the purchased items.

Blog shop owners should take note of this online shopping scam.

Below is the victim:

I have an e-commerece website, when they first contacted me and ask if I take credit cards which is strange because I have all (4) credit cards in a Logo on my front page of my website. When you say yes, they will order from 1500.00 to 4500.00 worth of product all in multiples of what ever product they choose. They are usually pick the very expensive items. They immediately start asking you to ship asap, i wait for tracking number they say. They ask everyday or every other day if you shipped yet. They wait until they know the package is shipped and in customs and then they report to the credit card company it was an unauthorized purchase. What stinks is , the scammer gets the product and if you have a pay-pal shopping cart like I do, pay-pal on this end takes the full amount of the order out of your account until it is settled. You have to go to the details link on pay pal in your account to see if you are eligible for seller protection when someone places an order. If not they take the entire amount out of your pay-pal account which puts you in the negative if you don't keep a lot of money in there. If you have seller protection, they leave the money in I guess and work out the dispute with the credit card company. These orders all have addresses that are shipped to a building on Airport Rd in Singapore, building No. whatever. This is most likely where the freight forwarders are to ship somewhere else. I shipped one order and the dispute ended in my favor but shortly after I received 3 other big orders all going to some building on airport rd in Singapore. They are telling there buddies they found some sucker in the states that will send out the product. I have since stopped all sales to Singapore and if I do get an order, I immediately refund the money right back. I hope this helps save someone from this scam of people ordering product off your website and then claiming unauthorized purchase after you have sent the product. You lose the product and your account gets all screwed up for up to 30 days until they get it worked out.

We would like to highlight that such scammer exists in every country. Even though large number of residents in Singapore are foreigners, the government is still able to reduce crime rate, such that Singapore is safer and more crime-free than most other countries.

Any victim from other country should try to contact the Singapore police force for assistance in any online scam. It would do you good while helping Singaporeans to remove black sheep.

Some Tips on Scams on Mediacorp Channel 8

Tonight's Crimewatch (绳之以法) 2012 episode 4 on Mediacorp channel 8 will reveal some scams and tips to avoid them.

It will include the webcam sex extortion scam.

Remember to catch it!