A Singaporean man was reportedly scammed of more than $30,000 by his Taiwanese “online celebrity girlfriend” who threw tantrums if she felt he didn’t give her enough.
The 41-year-old victim, Mr Chen, who works as a salesperson in Singapore, told Shin Min Daily News that he started following the “internet celebrity” online from around 2020 to 2021.
The “celebrity” then started doing live streams in November 2021 to interact with her “fans”, and Chen then started interacting with her and eventually got a reply from her about 2 months later, on 14 January earlier this year.
The two then started chatting online daily with the “celebrity” sending him selfies and their relationship developed.
She then became a host for a live shopping platform and invited Chen to watch the live stream and support her.
She told him that her company wanted her to collect 100 gifts that were “filled with love” and if she couldn’t meet the target, she won’t be able to continue hosting, and she hoped Chen could gift her $50.
During the live stream, Chen spent $2,500 on the woman, and they confirmed their relationship on 1 March after chatting constantly.
The woman even sent him a long message where she confessed her love for him.
Since then, she would ask Chen to send her gifts and if the gift that he sent is not the same amount as what her fans bought her on the live streams, she would throw tantrums.
Chen ended up spending about $30,000 on gifts for his “online celebrity girlfriend”.
He then realised that he was cheated when other fans contacted him, and he noticed that the woman’s replies to him were not coherent.
He also found out that the messages sent by the woman were exactly the same as the other fans who were scammed by her, including a 32-year-old man who received the same message at the same time.
They then lodged a report with the police.
According to Shin Min Daily News, the woman is a Malaysian who flew to Taiwan to develop her career, and the police confirmed with SMDN that they are looking into the incident(s).
Note: Images used for illustration purposes only and are not related to the persons involved in the incidents.