‘I lost $10,000 every 3 seconds’: Retiree scammed out of $3 million, forced to sell property to pay loan sharks, latest Singapore news

A Singaporean woman who was swindled out of $3 million had to sell two properties to pay off her loan sharks.

talk lotus river jujubeIn 2019, Poon Sing Wah, a 74-year-old retiree, said he was swindled out of his hard-earned money by people claiming to be Chinese officials.

Poon, himself a former Zaobao reporter, said he got a call one day from a man pretending to be an employee of the courier company DHL. He claimed Poon had sent several forged passports to Beijing, where he was detained at customs.

Later, a man claiming to be a police officer with China’s International Criminal Police Organization told Poon that he was under investigation for masterminding a money laundering scheme. Frozen for two years.

Poon was born in Shanghai and still has a bank account in Shanghai.

Preying on her anguish, the impostor offered to “help” her. They got a female “police officer” to give her the documents of her “crime” as evidence.

“In both cases, the person met me in the parking lot[of her condo in Singapore],” Poon said, and was repeatedly told that “the police were secretly helping her,” adding that the ongoing Do not talk to anyone about the “investigation”.

Poon soon fell into a web of deception as he listened to all the instructions given to him by the crooks. This involves logging into a website “operated by the Chinese police” and, more importantly, pushing the “OK” button on her bank digital her token every three seconds to “her It also included verifying fingerprints.

Poon later found that tens of thousands of dollars were being siphoned from his account with each button push.

“I lost 50,000 yuan (S$9,800) every three seconds,” she said.

Poon logged into her China Zheshang Bank account a total of 266 times in 20 days, exfiltrating bank transfers worth RMB 14.86 million.

“That was the equivalent of S$3.03 million at the time,” said Poon, who didn’t know his savings would be depleted in the next 20 days.

In addition to her savings, the scammers have given Poon money for a variety of fictitious purposes, from needing to prove her financial strength to Chinese authorities to paying for the burial of deceased victims. I instructed her to transfer more money from Singapore to her Chinese bank account. Girlfriend.

To raise additional funds, Poon borrowed money from friends and loan sharks.

When a friend told her of the possibility, she suspected it was all a scam.

By then it was too late.

After noticing that she could not log into her China Zhejiang Bank account, she called the bank and was told that there was only 0.76 yuan left in her account.

She flew to Shanghai and called the police, but was told that there was no crime in China, so it was out of the police’s jurisdiction.

property for sale

To pay off her loan shark debt, Poon was forced to sell two of her properties.

She told Zaobao that the incident had caused her to lose 10 kilograms and even considered taking her own life.

“You don’t have to worry about anything even if your life runs out, but what about people who owe money?”

She decided to share her experience as a warning to others.

“I want to use this unfortunate incident to raise public awareness,” she said.

Poon said Zhejiang Bank of China filed a lawsuit for allegedly neglecting security, but the court did not rule in her favor.

What gave her some comfort, however, was that her children were unfazed after learning about the scam.

“I apologized and told them I was very sorry as the amount was supposed to be theirs.”