48-year-old Zhong Luo thought she found a good deal on a website – thunder tea rice selling at S$7.90, but 2 get 1 free.
The 48-year-old saw the advertisement for the traditional Hakka dish on social media last Saturday (2 Sept) and decided to give it a try.
She contacted the seller by means of a messaging app, and that’s when her troubles began.
Luo was given a hyperlink told to access a webpage where she had to fill in her personal details for deliver purposes.
When she clicked on the link, an app called “Grab and Go” automatically downloaded on her mobile phone.
The next day, Luo noticed that her phone was unresponsive, such that no matter how she swiped the screen she would always be directed back to the home screen.
The phone was also very hot.
At 4pm, she received a call from her bank informing her that S$6000 was being transferred out of her bank account.
She told the bank to freeze the transfer.
However, the bank called again 2 hours later, saying that money had been transferred out of her account 3 times, the transactions totalling S$37, 466.
The money was part of a retirement fund for herself and her husband.
Now, only 6 cents remained in her bank account.
Leo reported the matter to the police.
She says that the bank should have frozen her account at 4pm, and delayed any transactions to prevent scammers transferring more money out of her account.
Fortunately, Luo had the good sense to prevent 2 of her friends who almost fell for a similar scam.
She wants to warn the public to be careful when they see cheap deals online.
