Singapore — A young woman went the extra mile to upload a TikTok video to warn the public about a new scam, where girls are told their photos and other information are being circulated without their knowledge.
Ms Glennice Tong @g1ennice on TikTok, uploaded her post on Jan 27, and it has since been viewed by nearly 50,000 viewers.
“pls be wary, they’re so crafty nowadays & no i didn’t fall for it!!!!!!!,” she wrote.
An unknown person reached out to her one day, she said.
She wrote that she isn’t an old lady (as less digitally-savvy senior citizens are often the prey of scammers), but this particular scam almost had her fooled since the scammers were “pretty convincing.”
Ms Tong called the scam “terrifying” but added that it was fortunate she had seen the story of a friend who had experienced the same thing and was therefore on her guard.
“They claim to have mirror shots of me chatting with a guy, and also my details,” she said.
The scammer then brought up the Nasi Lemak SG group on Telegram.
In 2019 four leaders of the group, which at one point had over 44,000 members, were arrested for sharing obscene photos and videos.
The person who reached out to Ms Tong said they would walk her through it, but it would require Ms Tong to log in on a certain site.
The person then sent her a link to the supposed private group, telling her that when she gets accepted, she can report it.
She was asked to put her phone number and then would receive an OTP, which she could then use as a password for logging in.
At that point, Ms Tong realized it was a scam, she told The Straits Times.
She later reported the incident to the police as a scam.
“Pretty good lying skills,” she said on her video, giving the scammers a 9.5 out of 10 for lying.
Girls, she said, would really worry about their photos out there, and with scams like these, now they’d have to worry about phishing as well.
In December, an OCBC phishing scam affected 790 victims, with total losses reaching S$13.7 million.
What set her off, she added, was that the scammer said that she had been chatting with a guy “about sex and stuff,” which she says she does not do.
And she was incredulous that the scammer did not know whether the group was on Telegram or WhatsApp, since the interfaces are completely different. /TISG
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