When I replied, I was added to a chat group with nine members. Once I joined, a few people sent messages welcoming me to the group.
One of the members invited another member to dinner, but she replied: “Next time, willing to work late a bit, earn more income.”
One person messaged me separately to get “acquainted”, asking for personal details like my age and occupation. The group member, who called himself Ryan, shared that he could earn S$5,000 to S$6,000 a month with this “job”.
I messaged most of the members in the group separately, asking them if this was a scam. They all said no.
One replied saying that they had been working on this for 11 months and that “you are the first one who have doubt with our platform”.
Another texted me “siao”, which means “crazy” in Hokkien.
I stopped texting the scammers when they asked me to key my bank details into the website to transfer commissions to me. A few hours later, they removed me from the chat group.
TYPES OF JOB SCAMS
According to scamalert.sg, jobs scams often start with unsolicited job offers via messaging apps or social media. They can come in many forms and the case outlined above is an “Affiliate Marketing” jobs scam.
This is where victims are asked to help boost sales of sellers by paying for products in advance in return for commissions. Such payments are often made to private bank accounts.
There are also scams where victims are asked to process fund transfers, open bank accounts or…
