A 74-year-old man lost $50,000 life savings after downloading an app to order Peking duck
Ryzhkov Photography/Shutterstock
- A 74-year-old man lost $51,000 in life savings after being scammed, Singapore media reported.
- Scammers tricked Mr Loh into paying a deposit on the Grab&Go app and then stole his savings.
- Over 750 users fell victim to malware scams in the first half of this year, local police said.
A 74-year-old man lost almost $51,000 in life savings after being tricked into downloading an app to order Peking Duck, according to Singaporean media.
The elderly man, who was identified only as Mr Loh, said he was attracted by a deal on Facebook offering 1.5kg of Peking Duck for the equivalent of $17.30, with an extra $5 Singapore dollars, about $3.60, for delivery fees, per the Singaporean tabloid newspaper Shin Min Daily News.
He told Shin Min he was going to have dinner with his family on the night of August 26 and figured his grandson would like to eat the popular dish.
The Facebook seller sent Loh voice messages on WhatsApp with instructions to download the Grab&Go app on his phone, per Shin Min.
Before his order could be processed, the app required him to make a $5 Singapore dollar deposit payment through PayNow.
Loh, a former importer, was initially wary of the ad and even asked if it was a scam. But the person eventually persuaded him to pay the deposit, the newspaper reported.
The scammer told him that "no one would be cheated of $5" and that "this was a small thing", per the Singaporean newspaper The Strait Times.
However, within minutes of making the payment, Loh's phone screen went black and repeatedly rebooted for 30 minutes, prompting him to reach out to the scammer in a panic, per the newspaper.
Loh's wife then realized something was wrong and contacted their daughter, who got her brother to call the bank to block their father's account, according to the outlet.
But it was already too late.
According to the newspaper, a bank employee told the family that the scammer had raised Loh's transaction limit and transferred about US$42,900 out of his current and savings accounts.
Using Loh's DBS credit card, the scammer also obtained a credit advance of nearly $8,000, it reported.
"I couldn't believe the news. I thought: Why am I so stupid?" Loh told The Strait Times.
"I was so angry at myself for being cheated of my life savings,'" he said, adding: "My family is frustrated, and I ended up quarreling with my wife."
Loh's daughter told the newspaper that all the children were "heartbroken" that their father was scammed after they had warned him about such schemes in the past.
"We thought we had done enough to minimize the risk," she told the newspaper.
Loh has since switched phones and deleted the Facebook and Internet banking apps from his phone, per the newspaper.
According to a recent report by Singapore's Police Force, more than 750 Android device users fell prey to malware scams in the first half of 2023, resulting in losses of more than $7 million.
Police and the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore released a joint advisory in August to increase awareness about the growing frequency of malware scams impacting Android users.