After saving up money for two years to pay for her wedding, a Singaporean woman has lost over S$17,000 (US$12,544) after answering to a job posting that turned out to be a scam.
Going by the alias Iris, she originally found an advertisement for a part-time marketing gig on Facebook. The gig’s deal was attractive: It could be done online, and the hours were flexible. Thinking that she could earn some extra money for her wedding, she answered to the job posting.
The response from the hirer came immediately, informing her that she was hired as an affiliate marketing associate, allegedly for the e-commerce platform Qoo10.
She was then told to use her own money to pay in advance for some of the products on the platform in order to give the sales figures a boost. The hirer told her she would be reimbursed for it with a small commission.
Having only communicated through WhatsApp with the hirer, Iris was then added into a WhatsApp group where most of the instructions given to her were from people with foreign telephone numbers.
“I thought it was strange that (the scammers) told me to make payment to a bank account they provided, instead of paying on the platform,” Iris said. “But I brushed it off thinking I was paying directly to the merchant’s bank account.”
Within an hour of receiving her instructions, she had transferred S$620 (US$457.50) to them and was paid about S$100 (US$73.80) in profits from “purchasing” four items on the platform.
Upon receiving S$720…
