I met someone named Arno on the CMB app on June 15, 2023. We had normal conversations, and on June 18, he asked to switch to WhatsApp and shared that his name is Weijie. Everything seemed fine, and he would talk about his daily life and family. He claimed to have studied a double degree in Business Management and Food Sciences at the University of Sydney. He originally hails from Malaysia but moved to Singapore seven years ago with the intention of becoming a permanent resident by the end of the year.
He mentioned having an aunt who is a doctor in Singapore and stated that he runs his own company located at Aljunied Road. He also mentioned living at Ascentia Sky, Alexander View.
During our conversations, he mentioned being a close friend of David Chen, the co-founder of Sea Group, and through his connections, he could invest in private equity involving HDB projects and more. A week after chatting on WhatsApp, he suddenly informed me that he needed to urgently go to Kuala Lumpur as his grandma had fallen and hit her head. Despite this, he asked for my help to visit an HDB BTO worksite and take some photos so that he could confidently invest $500,000 in the project. Later that evening, he told me that he managed to get David’s help to grant access to an app called SoftUni, which could only be downloaded through a link he provided, and via VPN since the app isn’t available on the Apple Store in Singapore. The app registration required my legal name and NRIC.
Three successful investments were made for projects recommended by Weijie, and funds were returned to me through withdrawals. However, in the latest investment on June 30, 2023, he informed me that my funds were frozen due to an incorrect password entered during the withdrawal process, even though I’m certain I didn’t make a mistake. I reached out to customer service for resolution and was told that I needed to transfer the same amount of investment before my account could be unfrozen and my password changed. At this point, I became convinced it was a scam and did some research on scam alerts, finding similar modus operandi. Furthermore, I confirmed that the photos Weijie had sent of himself actually belonged to an individual named Felix Go (@helixgo on Instagram).
This has been an expensive lesson for me, but I want to urge everyone to be cautious when receiving photos from individuals, as they could be stolen from someone else. Also, don’t be fooled by apps that may appear legitimate but are actually scams.