'I lost $10k every 3 seconds': Retiree scammed out of $3 million, forced to sell properties to pay loan sharks

Scammed out of $3 million, a woman in Singapore had to sell off two of her properties to pay off her ensuing debts with loan sharks. 

Speaking to Lianhe Zaobao, the 74-year-old retiree, Poon Sing Wah, said she was cheated out of her hard-earned money back in 2019 by people claiming to be Chinese officials.

According to Poon, who herself was a former Zaobao reporter, she received a call one day from a man posing as an employee from courier company DHL. He alleged that Poon had sent several forged passports to Beijing that were detained at customs.

Later on, a man who claimed to be an interpol police officer in China told Poon she was being investigated for masterminding a money laundering scheme. As a result, the money in her bank account in China would be frozen for two years.

Poon was born in Shanghai and still maintained a bank account there.

Preying on her distress, the scammer then offered to “help” her. They even got a female "police officer" to hand her documentation of her "crimes" as proof.

"Both times, the person would meet me at the carpark (at her condo in Singapore)," said Poon, who was told repeatedly that “the police were secretly helping her” and she must not tell anyone about the ongoing “investigation”. 

Poon soon fell into the web of deceit as she heeded every instruction from the scammers. This included logging on to a website “operated by Chinese police”, and more crucially, pressing the "OK" button on her bank’s digital token every three seconds to "verify her fingerprints".

Poon later realised that each time she pressed the button, tens of thousands of dollars were syphoned out of her account.

"I lost 50,000 yuan (S$9,800) every three seconds," she said.  

Poon logged into her China Zheshang Bank account a total of 266 times in 20 days, with the outflow of bank transfers amounting to a whopping 14.86 million yuan.

"That was the equivalent of 3.03 million Singapore dollars then,” said Poon, who was unaware her life savings were being emptied during those 20 days. 

In addition to her savings, the scammers also instructed Poon to remit more money from Singapore to her Chinese bank account for various fictional purposes – from needing to prove her financial strength to Chinese authorities to paying for the burial fees of a victim who died because of her.

To raise the additional funds, Poon borrowed money from friends and loan sharks.

She only suspected it was all a scam when a friend told her of the possibility. 

By then, it was too late. 

When she realised she could not log into her China Zheshang Bank account, she called the bank and was told she had just 0.76 yuan left in her account. 

She flew to Shanghai and made a police report, but was told by the police there it was out of their jurisdiction as the crime did not happen in China. 

Properties sold off

To clear her loan shark debt, Poon was forced to sell off two of her properties.

She told Zaobao that she lost 10kg from the incident and had even thought of ending her life.

"Although I wouldn't have to care about anything if my life ended, what about others who I owed money to?"

She decided to share her experience to serve as a warning to others.

"I would like to use this unfortunate incident to raise the public's awareness," she said.

Poon said she took legal action against China Zheshang Bank for their alleged lapses in security, but the court did not rule in her favour.  

What did give her some comfort, though, was that her children did not get upset after finding out about the scam.

"I apologised and told them I was very sorry, as that sum of money was meant to have been theirs.”