Another Facebook Love Scam Caught!

As part of my commitment to keep you updated of Facebook/online love scams, I am posting this. You can see that this is a very updated screenshot because you cannot even see the date in the Facebook messenger chat but only the time. I received this message on the morning of 13 September 2016.

I accidentally accepted a friend request of a dubious Facebook user. It is definitely a scam, judging from the language he used in introducing himself. Obviously, a template has been used to introduce himself to millions of females around the world. How I know that? This is because very beautiful words have been used. For example, he was "fascinated by my beauty"! This is outrageous! Nobody professes love for another person just by seeing an online picture. Moreover, how does he know whether that's a real picture from me?

In the past, I would really have accepted such a compliment because I was very desperate for love. However, I'm no longer that desperate. Moreover I am also much more realistic about where I stand in terms of beauty. You should also be realistic about where you stand. As we all know, most people are not at the extreme end of beauty.

I will not be replying to this person and will be removing him from my Friends List.

Why You Fall Into Scams?

Image Source: securethoughts.com

You have a vulnerability that con men can exploit.

You may have been single for a long time, or been into and out of relationship many times. These con men understand that you have been feeling lonely and must be desperate or hunger for love and affection.

When they seek you out on Facebook or any other social network sites, they will joke with you. They will ask you why you are still single and they will ask you to pour your heart out because they want to show you that they care. Once you pour your heart, the effect on you is you will start to trust these con men a little bit more because they care to listen to you. This is related to social engineering which I further expand upon in the next section.

The con men are skillful at using social engineering tactics

Social engineering is the art of using strategies and tactics to manipulate the psychology of people so that they trust more quickly and are willing to divulge more information.

In the previous section, when you allow yourself to pour your soul out to a stranger, you are actually allowing your mind to relax and start to trust a person.

Next, these con men will also tell you that they have a sad story to share with you too. Usually, they will say they have been been through a terrible marriage and have divorced and they are lonely too. Some even will tell you they have kids and their kids are what give them the power to move on with life. They will also tell you they feel fortunate to know you and start to tell you that you are the final love of their life (even when they really don't know anything much about you). Ironically, because they put so much trust in you even before you think they shouldn't, you start to change your thinking to "hey, if this guy can trust me so much, why don't I try to believe him?"

That's when you are trapped.

Get my book from Amazon Kindle to learn how online love scammers work. Look at the side of this blog for the link to my eBook "A Practical Guide To Online Love Scam".

Share This! Another Internet Love Scam Has Happened!

Image Source: Channel News Asia

Here are a few short pieces of advice based on what I have experienced personally myself:

1. When someone calls and tells you to claim a lump sum of money or a car as a prize, DO NOT GIVE IN TO THE TEMPTATION! If that person claims you forget about the contest you have entered, THAT'S NOT TRUE! YOU DID NOT ENTER ANY!

2. When someone calls and tells you that you need to pay them a fee (ranging from a few hundreds to a few thousands) in order to collect the prize money or prize item, NO, IT'S NOT TRUE! There's no such thing as giving someone else money as a fee to claim a prize, even if the prize comes from abroad.

3. When someone contacts you through Facebook and commends you all over the sky and claims he loves you more than any other, YES, IT FEELS SWEET BUT THAT JUST A BAIT TO SCAM THAT FEW HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OUT OF YOUR POCKET! DON'T GIVE IN! REPORT TO FACEBOOK STRAIGHTAWAY.

4. Never reveal your personal contact number even when you feel it's safe BECAUSE IT'S NOT SAFE! There is never a real genuine person behind those sweet honeyed words.

5. When your "online lover" asks you for money so that he will be able to pay for an expensive package to be sent to you as a gift, DON'T GIVE IN! Even when you are lambasted by your "online lover" who will say you are being ungrateful, DON'T BLAME YOURSELF AND DON'T GIVE IN! He will play psychological games with you to make you feel sorry for the sorry things you do to him such as rejecting his kind and generous gift. BUT REMEMBER, NO SUCH GIFTS EXIST! IT'S JUST A LIE TO GET YOUR MONEY TRANSFERRED TO THE SCAMMER!

6. If you take my advice and reject him, your "online lover" will reveal his true self and start labelling you as a bitch. BLOCK HIM IMMEDIATELY FROM FACEBOOK AND REPORT TO FACEBOOK!

7. Many women have been heartbroken by this kind of thing. Cry if you must BUT ONLY FOR A FEW DAYS! You must realise it's not worth your tears over such things. Besides you should feel happy you haven't suffered any financial loss and you have managed to uncover a scam sooner rather than later.

Don't be part of the statistics. Be OUT of the statistics!

Marriage Scam: A True Story in Singapore (Part 2 of 2)

Image Source: http://www.locombia.org/

So then, 7 years passed. My younger sister's marriage was in 2009 and now it is the year 2016.

Last year in August, it was on a Friday evening (14 August 2015) and I was at the Universal Studios Singapore with my friend as we had discounted tickets from my company. I was looking forward to a night of relaxation ad enjoyment with my best friend.

Then I received an SMS from an unknown number, telling me I would receive a call later. Then I received a call from a middle-aged woman who spoke Mandarin with the Chinese accent.

She asked me whether I was Marguerite's sister and I said, "Yes, what is it about? Who are you?"

She told me that my sister's husband was having an affair and was seeking my help to put a stop to it. She said the woman in question was her niece and she couldn't talk her out of it. She said my sister's husband kept visiting her niece at her apartment and her niece wasn't rejecting him She was in love with him. I said I needed time to think about it and would call her back. However, she told me that I could not call her back as she's going back to China in a few days.

I became very suspicious. I was thinking, "Who the hell can I contact after we end the call?" So I asked where she got my number from. She did not say directly. She just said it was easy to search for my number online. I guessed she didn't want to reveal the person who gave her my number. Anyway, I thought it might be a scam, that it might be some tricks to coerce money from me. So I decided to treat the call as the prankster's call and ignore it. Also, I didn't think an extra-marital affair had happened because my sister and her husband had been married for so long, so I assumed their marriage was rather stable. And so, I went on to enjoy my evening there at Universal Studios.

Then, 2 days later, during lunch hour, I received a call from a young lady. There was no caller ID, and so there was no way I was to call back this person once we ended the call. She told me her friend working at the casino was having an affairs with my sister's husband. She said she had counselled her friend for many times and couldn't stop, and so she wanted to take action to prevent the extra-marital affairs from taking another step further. She said she already had evidence because she had hired a private investigator. She wanted me to go and hire private investigator too to find out for myself the details of the affairs and then take action to stop my sister's husband from seeing her friend. And I told her, "Since you have all the evidence, why don't we arrange a time to meet together and you show me what you have got?" She refused. She said her job was to inform me what happened and my job now was to go and get my own evidence and take action. I asked her for her number and she refused too. This sounded like a scam because she only allowed one-way communication. So I decided to ignore the call again. But this time, I did call up my younger sister and asked her if she received similar calls. Her answer was affirmative and she said she would try to find out more.

I was thinking of making a police report but from my past experience, I felt I needed to wait for the third call because I had a strong reason that a scam was going on. But the third call never came.

That was all there was to it! I thought I had foiled a scam!

But bad news came one or two months later. My father sent me an SMS informing me that my sister was going through a divorce and the reason was just plainly "Difference of characters, can't get along."

Again, a lame reason given the Chinese husband, as lame as the reason he gave me when I questioned him why he needed to marry my sister that quickly. My worries were right. 7 years earlier, I warned my mother of a possible danger that this Chinese was using my sister to apply for Singapore Permanent Residency and a HDB apartment. All has come true. Only one year after they had moved into their new flat in Sengkang, this Chinese guy asked for a divorce and demanded that my sister returned all assets to him when my younger sister was the one who paid more for the house than him. He said my sister should be the one to give up the house and hand it to him. The divorce case is still on-going and he was sending threatening Whatsapp messages to my sister frequently telling her that he would meet her in court.

When the Chinese husband broke out the news late last year that he wanted a divorce, my sister was devastated. It took her nearly half a year to recover from the heart-break. Only now she has recovered a little to give the strength to go to different entities to ask for more information about what to do if a divorce is impending. She has to make trips to the bank, the Central Provident Fund (CPF) board, the Housing and Development Board (HDB), the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore (ICA) agency to find out what she can do. But the Chinese husband wouldn't allow and warn her that if she continues to delay signing the divorce papers with him, he would ask his lawyer to bring this case to the court.

The Chinese husband is demanding that every asset (the house, the furniture) has to be returned to him. He is asking my sister to give up everything. This is absurd because he is just a foreigner. My sister is a Singapore citizenship and she was the one who helped him to get his Permanent Residency in Singapore. And now, he will not let my sister have a share of any asset. Furthermore, my mother went back on her words and she would not take any responsibility for what is currently happening. She even blamed my sister for giving her undue distress. A few days ago, my sister told me she couldn't take it no longer and wanted to end her life.

So now, I have to step in. Even when 7 years ago I told my mother I didn't care about what happened to my sister in the future and even when she told me sternly that my sister's marriage was not my business, I have to step in. After all, my sister is a kind soul. She doesn't deserve this kind of life. I'm going to my best to help.

I wonder how this will progress. In any case, you will get my update.

As you see, it wasn't an obvious marriage scam but that's because it was so well thought out and was executed over several years.

I hope this information will be useful for you.


News Links:

LOVE, LIES AND BORDERLINES
https://themigrationist.net/2015/04/22/love-lies-and-borderlines/

Marriage Scam: A True Story in Singapore (Part 1 of 2)

Image Source: http://www.locombia.org/

This is a real story and it happened to my younger sister.

7 years ago, my sister brought a man into the house and announced her marriage to this man.

I was shocked because I saw this man the first time and what's more, the news was about a marriage.

I decided to probe more.

First, I asked the guy what made him think he could marry my sister now. He simply answered, "I love her." That was all. I was expecting to tell me how he could provide for my sister and other more concrete commitment.

I questioned him a bit more, mainly to probe whether he was a genuine person or a fake. Because the guy was a Chinese guy and I knew many Chinese people married Singaporeans to get a Singapore citizenship after which they would disappear. At the end of the conservation, he simply told me, "There's no need for us to talk more. Your mother already said yes."

Next, I confronted my mother for clarification.

I asked her why she agreed when she knew this guy was in no financial position to marry my sister. My mum told me that my sister wanted to marry this guy as fast as possible and she couldn't stop it. Next, I asked her how long they knew each other and she said, "Very long." Then, I asked her how long. And what I heard later shocked me: one year.

At the end, I gave my mum an ultimatum: I have already given you all my reasons why I objected to this decision. You are the parent, and you definitely have a say in this decision. If you say no, this marriage can be called off. I am objecting not because I don't want my sister not to have happiness. It's because I want her to have true happiness that I want you to call off. I'm not saying I don't ever want her to get married. I just want you to postpone the marriage for about 1 year, for us to monitor whether the guy is a genuine person or a fake one and also, if he's genuine, having one more year of savings would definitely help them. And so, since you always want to be right and since you do not allow any of us to override your decision fine! If there's any problem later on, don't come and find me!

My mother was adamant. She challenged me and said, "You rest assured that if something happens, I will take 100% responsibility. You stay out of everything."

Fast forward 7 years now, my sister's husband requested for a divorce and with this opportunity, my sister revealed her side of the story.

Read my next post for the second part of this story.

News Link:

How the Canadian Government Tackle Marriage Fraud
https://themigrationist.net/2015/04/22/love-lies-and-borderlines/

WeChat Scams

WeChat is the most widely used mobile chat application in China by the Chinese. It is also quite popular in Singapore.

It is a very good platform for getting to know people. There is a  feature in the application that I like very much because it helps me to search for people all over the world to make friends with. It is also very popular with businesses who use the platform for marketing and it is definitely one of the platform and I am seriously thinking of using to market my businesses.

And oh, something that is popular can connect with millions of individuals worldwide is also prone to being exploited for darker motives.

Lately, there have been more and more cases in Singapore where guys are asked to pay a small amount of money usually by AXS transfer or other online payment services in exchange for a date, massage or sex. They are usually asked to go a particular location to meet up with the girl but always, when they arrived, the girl is not there.

Of course, there's no such a girl in the first place. It's just a scam!

Then, when they contacted the girls and asked where they were, their replies were usually the same: they have to make some payment first before the girls could appear.

That's the usual tactic. I had experience tons of them.

Then, for some who naively made the first payment, thinking that they could finally meet the girl, they were asked to make additional payment for some "made-up processing fees" or other seemingly reasonable excuses.

But of course, these are just tactics. And, of course, it is very reasonable to fall into such tactics because the reasons are put forward to you in a very reasonable manner.

However, if you look at whole process, and ask yourself how you feel about it, you will know there's something fishy. I am sure you feel something uneasy but perhaps, you have brushed that thought aside because you think you are thinking too much or getting paranoid. But I assure you that you are not.

You see, if it's a normal business, you should be allowed to see the girl in her physical presence. It is very suspicious to have to ask you to make payment first for something you have not even seen.

Just remember simply, it's likely a scam if you are asked to pay for something you have not even seen.

If you are in doubt, feel free to add your comment in this post, or contact me through the contact form provided in the side bar of this blog and I will give you my advice.

You deserve not to be cheated by unscrupulous people.


News Link:

Lured by sex, saved by a 7-Eleven pamphlet
http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/lured-sex-saved-7-eleven-pamphlet

Official Information from the National Crime Prevention Council in Singapore
http://www.scamalert.sg/scams/alipay-scam.html

When A Scammer Can't Get What He Wants...

Three days ago, a conversation with a Facebook love scammer finally ended...

 

As written in my ebook, a scammer will start their conversation in a very lovely and friendly manner but when they cannot get you to conform to their wishes, like me, you will be severely chided by them:

Stupid! Idiot! Foolish!

My gosh! Luckily you didn't become my boyfriend! ;-)

As expected, he closed down his Facebook account after leaving his last message for me.

With this, I hope you know what to do if you happen to encounter such scammers again.