According to reports from Sin Chew Daily Malaysia, a single Chinese young man from Muar, Johor, Malaysia recently met a beautiful woman on social media and thought he had found true love. However, he accidentally fell into a foreign exchange investment scam and lost more than 40,

Recently, a piece of news has made the online dating scam appear in the newspapers.

According to reports from Sin Chew Daily Malaysia, a single Chinese young man from Muar, Johor, Malaysia recently met a beautiful woman on social media and thought he had found true love. However, he accidentally fell into a foreign exchange investment scam and lost more than 40,000 hard-earned money. ringgit .

The victim is a 37-year-old man surnamed Du. He originally worked in the Singapore service field. He lost his job due to the epidemic and returned to his hometown in September 2020 to find a way out.

couldn't find a job temporarily during the Movement Control Order, so he opened an Facebook account when he was bored. On May 10, a beautiful netizen surnamed Liu who claimed to open a beauty salon in Kuala Lumpur requested to add him as a friend. After that, the two exchanged messages and began to "date".

The victim said that the two only communicated through text from beginning to end and talked about life, family and investment together on weekdays. When he heard that the beautiful woman said that her husband had died in a car accident and that she was raising a 4-year-old child by herself, he felt even more sympathy. And seeing her good looks, he was moved by her true feelings.

"After more than a week of contact, the other party began to persuade me to invest in foreign exchange funds, and said that I could earn at least one hundred US dollars a day. Driven by curiosity, I opened a foreign exchange investment website and invested one thousand US dollars."

Then, the victim invested a total of US$10,000 four times and earned more than US$5,000. When he asked to get his money back, the other party said he didn't make much and suggested he continue investing to gain greater benefits. The victim of

subsequently opened a new investment website. When he logged in according to the instructions, he instantly lost 10,000 US dollars and could not withdraw the remaining money. He questioned the other party, but he was blamed. Later, the beauty simply blocked the victim. Only then did the victim

know that he had fallen into a "honey trap" scam set up by a fraud group and was defrauded of a total of 43,450 ringgit.

In fact, it is not uncommon for Chinese people to be deceived due to careless online dating.

According to previous reports by American Chinese website , there have been many cases of Chinese men being defrauded in online dating in the Chinese community in New York. Among them, Mr. Chen, a Chinese man from Brooklyn, fell into a dating trap and was defrauded out of thousands of dollars.

Mr. Chen is from Fuzhou, Fujian Province and lives on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn. Previously, he met a female user who called herself "Yoona" online. The two chatted happily and agreed to meet the next day. But when Mr. Chen arrived at the agreed meeting place, "Yoona" was nowhere to be seen.

At this time, Mr. Chen received a message from "Yoona". The other party said that he needed to prepare gifts for the meeting and asked Mr. Chen to go to a nearby supermarket to buy a $200 Apple iTunes gift card. Mr. Chen immediately complied and took a photo of the gift card number and password and sent them to the other party. The other party cashed in the gift card immediately after receiving it and said he would see you the next day. Mr. Chen had no choice but to return in frustration.

When Mr. Chen tried to contact "Yoona" again the next day, he unexpectedly received a call from a stranger. The other party claimed that he was the "second boss" of a gang. Now Mr. Chen was "harassing the gang lady" and threatened him to pay the US$1,000 membership fee, otherwise Then he would follow Mr. Chen’s address and find his door.

Mr. Chen had no choice but to do so in order to protect himself. But when he came to his senses, he realized that he had been fooled.

Under the new crown epidemic, various new fraud methods are emerging in the UK, and the number of fraud cases using online dating methods is increasing day by day. Many British Chinese have become targets of fraud, and some people have lost more than 100,000 pounds.

According to the British " Guardian " report, a 23-year-old Chinese man named Ryan Chen (pseudonym) met a woman who lived in Manchester, England through a dating software. The woman seemed attractive, and Mr. Chen happily shared his Facebook and personal information with her.

The woman then asked to exchange some intimate photos with Mr Chen. After she sent a private video of herself, Mr. Chen sent her a video in return.

Later, she sent Mr. Chen a list of Mr. Chen’s Facebook friends and informed him that she already knew who his cousins ​​were. "She wanted me to transfer $4,000 to her account, otherwise she would send my private video to all my Facebook friends," Mr. Chen said.

Mr. Chen realized that he had encountered an online dating scam. Although he was scared and panicked, he did not follow the instructions. Instead, he opened the website of the British National Crime Agency and took the advice on the website to deal with online dating scams.

Under the new crown epidemic, people spend most of their time at home, and some people are eager to have someone to accompany or talk to. Online dating scams are becoming more and more rampant in the UK.

According to data provided by the British Financial Industry Association, from January to November 2020, bank transfer fraud related to romance fraud increased by 20% year-on-year.

In addition, in 2020, the number of online dating fraud reported by the Fraud Reporting Center under the British National Crime Agency also increased by 15%.

Cases like this all remind us: we need to be cautious when making friends online, as pie from the sky is likely to be a trap.

Overseas Chinese friends must enhance their legal awareness, improve their ability to prevent fraud, and never fall into the "gentle trap" of strange netizens.

anti-fraud experts remind:

When making friends, you must promptly and carefully verify the identity of the other party. Most victims are deceived by the scammers' rhetoric and superficial behavior, and do not carefully verify their true identity. Do not have "vanity", "greed", "loose work" and other mentality, otherwise it is easy to fall into the scammer's "quantity" mentality. Customized” trap.

When it comes to money issues, don’t believe any excuses or rhetoric from netizens. In many such cases, criminal suspects mostly use "high returns", "high benefits" and other excuses to induce victims to "invest" and "recharge", etc. Be sure to communicate with relatives and friends around you to prevent falling into the trap of scammers.

If you find that you have been accidentally cheated, you must call the police in time to try to recover your losses.

Source: Malaysia's "Sing Chew Daily", American Chinese website, etc.

Source: China Overseas Chinese Network