We probably know of someone who absolutely adores a certain celebrity and would do anything to gain a fraction of their attention.
Unfortunately for one woman in Singapore, her obsession for Taiwanese singer Fei Yu-ching turned into a costly mistake, where she lost S$80,000 (RM266,373) in the process.
Got a text from ‘Fei Yu-ching’
The victim, 71-year-old Huang Xiulian (transliteration), told Shin Min Daily News that the incident occurred in Aug 2022, where she received a text from a person identifying himself as Fei Yu-ching.
Huang also admitted that she was a huge fan of Fei and seeing the message from him was a balm to her soul as she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and was undergoing treatment at the time.
‘I love you (?)’
As the days went by, both Huang and the scammer texted each other regularly, where suddenly on one fine day, the scammer told her that he loved her and wanted to see her in Singapore.
He even told Huang that he wished to marry her and didn’t care about the fact that he was three years older than her, adding that age was just a number.
Needless to say, this sent Huang on a tailspin, who truly believed that she was in a relationship with the real Fei Yu-ching despite her friend’s warnings.
Gave scammer details for new bank account
The scammer also managed to convince Huang to open a new bank account, where she activated it and gave all the login details to the scammer.
She also shut down all of her remaining bank accounts and transferred approximately S$20,000 (RM66,621.92) into the new account. On a separate occasion, Huang even gave the scammer S$12,000 (RM39,973.15) as a loan.
The scammer later told Huang that he needed to retrieve a package which reportedly contained gold bars and cash and was stuck at Singapore customs but was unable to do so as his bank account was frozen.
Blinded by ‘love’
On Sept 23, 2022, Huang saw that the scammer had transferred more than S$11,934 (RM39,753.30) out from the new bank account, where she panicked and pleaded for the money to be returned.
In response, the scammer said that he had no intentions of deceiving her and assured her of his love for her.
Falling for his sweet words, Huang lent him another S$10,000 (RM33,310.96) to get him out of trouble after another package of his was stuck at customs.
Bitter ending
Huang finally came to her senses after she discovered that over RM260,000 was completely siphoned from her bank account.
To add salt to injury, she had just made two transfers of more than S$58,000 (RM193,203.58) after receiving payouts from two insurance policies that hit maturity.
Despite her best efforts to contact the scammer, he stopped responding to her messages and disappeared completely.
Huang said that she needed the money for her chemotherapy and cancer treatment but has yet to recover the money.
She later lodged a police report after she realised that she was scammed and swore not to speak to strangers ever again.
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