SINGAPORE: Police on Wednesday (May 11) warned of employment scams involving unsolicited forged messages allegedly sent by e-commerce platforms offering employment opportunities.
There have been at least 50 casualties since May, with losses amounting to at least S$430,000, police said.
“In these cases, victims would receive unsolicited messages advertising high-paying affiliate marketing-related jobs via SMS, WhatsApp or social media platforms,” police said in Wednesday’s news release.
The fake text messages will be displayed in the same conversation as the genuine messages from the e-commerce platform because the scammer had spoofed the platform’s number or name, police said.
Scammers would tell victims that commissions would be paid for completing simple tasks online.
They would then be asked to provide their personal information when they open an account on a spoofed website resembling Lazada’s. After that, they would be asked to complete tasks in order to earn commissions.
The jobs often started with simple tasks such as liking products on websites, where victims earned a commission of S$2 for each like, police said.
The victims would be convinced that it was a legitimate job opportunity after being able to withdraw the first commissions earned.
They will then be promised commissions of up to 30% if they purchase the items from the spoofed website. To make the purchase, the victims had to transfer money to bank accounts belonging to “strangers” for credit on their accounts.
“These victims would eventually discover they had been scammed when they were unable to opt out of their accounts, or when Lazada’s spoofed website was taken down,” police said.
TSTIME has contacted Lazada for more information.
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