An elderly man in his 70s from Singapore almost fell for a scam and sent $150,000 to his “Dutch girlfriend”, before he was stopped from doing so by vigilant bank staff from UOB.
The elderly man had went ot the main UOB branch at Raffles Place earlier this year to send money to the scammer, according to The Straits Times.
He had attempted to send a cheque of more than $150,000 to an overseas offshore account that was under someone else’s name, but the account number and the name of the account holder didn’t match.
46-year-old UOB service associate Jenny Hong, then got suspicious and asked why the man was sending such a large amount of money.
The elderly man then got flustered and couldn’t speak clearly, only telling her that it was urgent, and Hong then asked her assistant branch manager, 55-year-old Alison Cheng to come over to help.
The elderly man eventually revealed that he was sending the money to his girlfriend in the Netherlands, whom he met on Facebook about 2 months prior and made him believe that she needed the money for a business deal.
The bank staff then realised that the elderly man was being scammed and advised him against making the transaction, but he was unmoved.
He told them that he wasn’t being scammed, and that it was love, despite acknowledging the numerous news reports about similar scams.
Determined, the bank staff eventually made him realised and accept that he was a victim of a scam after persuading him for 30 minutes.
He finally realised that he could’ve fallen victim to a love scam had they not intervened, and would’ve kissed his $150k goodbye.
The elderly man then rescinded his request to make the money transfer, and made a police report against the scammer.