My Part in Busting Another Scam

Dear friends, this is the time I busted a 2nd scam, and saved my client possibly tens of thousands of dollars.

One morning, my client called me with an inquiry. She had done an investment with me recently and inquired if she sold off her investments, how long would she need in order to get the proceeds. I replied that it would take a matter of days, if the order was keyed in and all administration went thru. I asked her, why would she wish to withdraw the funds? Well, possible reasons were that some investors do get cold feet and some prefer to shift to fixed deposits to ride out this time in the markets. She replied that she wanted some funds as she had started an online business and needed money to buy materials to sell. That sounded reasonable.

The next day, we had a short Zoom session where I showed her where to click and approve the order. I tend also asked about the online shop. Was it a Wordpress or Wix platform? She showed me the site, and I was negatively surprised - it was shoddily done, and looked like a ripoff of other sites like Taobao or Shoppee. She proudly said she already had some orders and transactions that were completed and already had some profits, on the website. She needed some more funds to order items to fulfil her existing orders. She said her friend had helped set up the platform and online shop for her. She also asked me if I knew of this particular cryptocurrency platform. Whoa, that's not good!

My brain went into high alert, I keyed in the website URL into a scam detector website and it reflected that this particular online business URL was only 2 weeks old. I asked her, do you know who this 'friend' of yours is? Is he a local Singaporean? Have you met him in real life before? What does he do? She was not comfortable to tell me the details - that was all I really needed to know.

I told her, "You're very likely being scammed. The website is only 2 weeks old. Please be careful! Do further investigation!" She was adamant and did not believe me, and had faith that it would all work out. Worse still, she 'supposedly' had 5 days to fulfill an order by paying for her goods, and time was ticking down. Oh no!

I couldn't take the risk and I told her family member that she was very likely the victim of a scam. I showed them the website, the security ratings and whatever screenshots I could muster. The family members nodded and were advised to go to the police. I also went and consulted an IT security consultant (credits in comments) for a 2nd opinion. Could I have been wrong? I was relieved, the website address was so dodgy, even her computer security systems blocked it.

The consultant also advised us (we were in a Whatsapp chat group by then) to try to get the scammer on a video call. Often, victims of love or romance scams would not be able to video call the other party. My client followed the advise but the other party shut the link down, saying he had bad reception. However, the client was getting suspicious, and realized she had been deceived.

2 days later, the website went offline, and the other party went the way of the ghost. It was like he never existed. The family members made a police report. The money lost - tens of thousands of dollars. The money saved - as in not lost, also tens of thousands of dollars. I had helped raise the alarm in time, and the money was saved. I was also upset for my client, who by this time had become a friend to me. All that money lost, for her retirement! Word is, from her family member that she cried very badly for 2 days or more. It was terrible! The thing is, her investments were sold, but were not cashed out, I had managed to stop the whole episode in time and it. But what if I had done nothing? I would not be able to forgive myself.

For my fellow financial advisors out there: I believe we also have responsibility for our clients to a certain degree - if we note anything is amiss, we would need to raise the alarm. But, in order for us to raise the alarm and be taken more seriously, we do need to build relationships, and relationships with the family. There is safety in numbers, of sorts!

In addition to this; are you or would you be a victim of a scam?

• if the returns sound too good to be true...
• if the other party cannot be 'seen', only 'heard' or 'chatted with'
• if the other party asks you to help him/her out financially, with 'unusual' methods beyond bank transfers - like cryptocurrency transfers
• And finally, if the other party tells you to 'keep this opportunity to yourself'

Then, that is high on the scam-o-meter. Do watch it!