A 35-year-old woman was cheated of $17,000 that was meant for her wedding which she had planned to hold at the tail end of 2021.
She said that she took 3 years to save that amount of money, which was cheated from her in just a day back in September 2021.
She said that because of the job scam, her wedding won’t be happening any time soon; and that the $17,000 she lost might not be a lot to some people, but it took her a long time to save up for it because she doesn’t earn a lot.
How she got scammed
She said that she saw a job listing for a marketing position and she took the opportunity because she wanted to earn some extra money for her wedding.
She was hired as an “affiliate marketing associate” for the company, which claimed to be for Qoo10, and she was told to buy products on the platforms using her own money to help boost the merchants’ sales figures.
The “company” told her that they would reimburse her for the money that she spent as well as pay her a small commission.
As part of the scam tactic, the woman made about $100 in profits within an hour that day, with the scammer staying true to their words in order to gain her trust.
The woman was then told to buy products that were increasingly expensive, and she didn’t get her money back; with the scammer coming up with excuses such as she was too slow in completing her assignments.
She was eventually told to transfer bigger amounts of money if she wanted her money back, which she heeded because she was desperate,m spending more than $17,000 on things such as jewellery, computers, watches and etcetera.
She realised she was scammed and was devastated by the loss, and she said that she was looking forward to starting a life with her fiance and having kids – she said that she is not young anymore and fears not being able to have children later on.
Her fiance has been understanding of her and told her to be more careful about the things that she sees online in future.
The police are also investigating the incident and one of the accounts that the woman used to send money to the scammers has been frozen.