SG resident scammed into paying for parcel addressed to their mum, who never ordered it

SINGAPORE: A local Reddit user wrote that they never thought they would be a victim of a scam, adding that they hoped others would learn from the “stupid” mistake they made.

U/gupppies explained in a Dec 11 r/Singapore post that a package arrived at their home addressed to their mother, who was not in at the time.

The Ninja Van delivery staff told the post author, who was home alone, that it was a cash-on-delivery order, and asked them to pay S$40.

The post author saw that the name, address, and phone number on the package were all correct. Because the amount involved was not large, they said they felt no need to check with their mum about the delivery.

They then scanned the QR code to PayNow and took the package. After the Ninja Van staff took a picture of the delivery, they left.

When the post author’s mum came home, she was confused about the package, since she did not order anything.

Unbeknownst to them, the mum had received a message via WhatsApp earlier that day from an unknown number. The message said there was a package scheduled for delivery that afternoon. Feeling that this was a scam since there was no such delivery for anything she ordered, the mum deleted and blocked the number.

After the mum got home, she opened the package and found three plain T-shirts. Since she had not ordered them, she told the post author to return them.

When they checked the parcel’s delivery label, they saw there were many labels pasted over it.

“That’s when I realised I may have been scammed,” the post author wrote.

The word “scammer” had also been written across the parcel, which the post author unfortunately did not notice at the time of delivery.

Although they tried to retrieve the message the mum received concerning the delivery earlier, they could not do so since she had blocked the number. Nor could they trace which one it was among the over 40 blocked numbers on the mum’s phone.

The post author wrote that they are trying to get Ninja Van to hold the funds that they transferred, but this does not seem likely as Ninja Van asked the merchant about the order, and a fake order document can be easily made.

“I know that it’s money that I’ll probably never see again. I guess I’m just frustrated that someone (probably an earlier recipient of the parcel) wrote the word “scammer” on the package itself, but I was too dumb to not see it. I hope at least my $40 can at least help someone reading this to be more aware of this scam,” added the post author. /TISG

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