At least 10 people have fallen prey to e-commerce scams involving jades stones since January this year, with losses amounting to at least S$95,000.
In some instances, the scammers would peddle the jade on TikTok live streams and provide their bank account numbers for buyers to transfer payments.
However, they would later claim that payment was not received, or become uncontactable.
In other instances, the scammers would sell peddle raw uncut jade stones.
The scammers claim that they would buy back these raw jade stones at higher prices if they were later found to be high quality stones.
They also promised to refund buyers if the stones were of poor quality.
The scammers would then cut the raw jade on livestream.
However, buyers saw none of their money coming back, whether in the form of “returns” on their investment, or as “refunds”.
The scammers would subsequently become unreachable.
Police have warned the public to only purchase items from authorised sellers or reputable sources, and not to make upfront payments to unknown individuals via direct bank transfer.
