A Singaporean man's attempt at earning quick bucks turned into a six-year nightmare that had him shy away from big investments ever since.
With investment scam cases on the rise over the years, Kenneth is just one of many such victims in Singapore., a massive $198.3 million was lost to investment scams in Singapore – emerging as the top amount lost across all scam types. Kenneth admitted that he also let his guard down as the scheme was recommended by a close friend he met in polytechnic – who had fallen victim too.
To bolster its credibility, the company had created false records of past investments so he would feel assured about parting with his hard-earned money. "By then, I knew my money couldn't be taken out directly. This was the next possible step or glimmer of hope I saw. A lot of us thought that if our money was converted to cryptocurrency, we could then withdraw it via a cryptocurrency platform," said Kenneth.. Upon its launch, the cryptocurrency value crashed below US$0.01.Two years later, Kenneth found himself embroiled in another scam when he hopped on messaging app Telegram in 2020.
"Anything that revolves around Telegram or other weird social media chats cannot be easily trusted," he said, emphasising the importance of checking on their legitimacy especially with the advent of social media ushering in a new wave of online frauds.Today, Kenneth has put the incident past him. While there were some tense moments with his family, they chose to sweep the incident under the rug.