Friend or fraudster: Beware of unusual requests via text messages or calls (2024)

He thought he was helping a friend in need.

But soon after he transferred money to his “ex-colleague Jason”, Mr Lee Zhi Yong, 23, was blocked.

A quick check with mutual friends revealed that the “Jason” he was speaking to was, in reality, a scammer.

“I panicked,” he says. “The thought that I (won’t) get the money back was distressing.”

Mr Lee had loaned “Jason” $700 to pay a deposit for his home renovation.

The amount is significant for the full-time electrical engineering student at a local university. He earns about $600 a month working part-time jobs to supplement his monthly allowance of $600 from his parents.

Mr Lee is one of the 6,859 individuals who fell for fake friend call scam cases last year. In 2023, reported cases increased 225.7 per cent from 2,106 cases in 2022, Singapore Police Force (SPF) figures reveal.

Total losses rose 162.5 per cent from over $8.8 million in 2022, to at least $23.1 million in 2023.

'Do you know who I am?'

Did Mr Lee suspect that “Jason” could be a scammer? Not at all, he says. “He did not ask me for money right away.”

It started with a phone call from an unknown number in March 2023.

“It was almost midnight, and I was already asleep by then.”

Speaking in Mandarin with a foreign accent, the caller claimed to have lost his phone and had to change his number. “Do you know who I am?” he asked Mr Lee.

In his sleepy state, Mr Lee mistook him to be someone he met while working as a part-time warehouse assistant in 2022. The caller quickly adopted the name “Jason” and asked Mr Lee to save his new number.

The next morning, “Jason” called again. This time, he needed help with changing the PayNow number linked to his POSB account.

Mr Lee patiently guided him through the steps. But subsequently, “Jason” claimed to be locked out of his internet banking account as he keyed in the wrong answer to his security question.

That’s when “Jason” asked for money.

“He said he needed to pay an urgent deposit for his house renovation, and promised to return it at 4.30pm later that day,” Mr Lee says.

Believing he was helping a friend, Mr Lee transferred “Jason” $700 – more than a month’s worth of his part-time salary – via PayNow.

At 4.45pm, realising the money was not transferred back to his bank account, Mr Lee tried calling “Jason”. “But there was no dial tone and he had blocked me on (messaging platform) WhatsApp.

“I contacted my other ex-colleagues, who informed me that the real Jason did not change his number.”

Mr Lee proceeded to make a police report.

Building trust before deceit

In fake friend call scams, victims receive phone or WhatsApp calls from unknown numbers. The caller pretends to be a friend and asks victims to save their “new number”.

Later, the scammers would contact them again to ask for a loan, claiming they’re unable to perform a banking transaction or are experiencing financial difficulties. In some cases, scammers may ask the victims to install a third-party mobile application or click on a link to help make restaurant reservations.

Fake friend call scammers tend to first build trust by pretending to be someone victims know, before asking for assistance or money, says Police Superintendent Rosie Ann McIntyre, assistant director of the Scam Public Education Office Operations Department, SPF.

They seek to “exploit our tendency to want to help our friends”, she adds.

Mr Lee has “accepted” that he is unlikely to get his money back.

“(In hindsight), I should have verified ‘Jason’s’ identity (through other means), such as asking to meet up, before lending him money.”