Woman scammed out of $20k savings after replying to $20 cleaning ad on Facebook
A woman thought she chanced upon a real bargain while searching for a house-cleaning service online.
The woman, surnamed Ye, told Shin Min Daily News that she saw an advertisement from a cleaning company on Facebook that offered a four-hour cleaning session every fortnight for just $22.
"It was a very good price… so I left my contact details with the company," said the 40-year-old administrative assistant.
Ye said an employee from the 'cleaning company' contacted her the following day and asked her to download an app.
Following the employee's instructions, Ye downloaded the app and keyed in her debit card details to pay a $5 'deposit'.
"After I entered my card details, the app said my card was invalid. When I showed the staff, he asked me to try using a credit card instead."
Even after switching to a credit card, the same error appeared, and Ye was asked to try switching to a third card.
"I became suspicious and I decided to stop. After that, I checked my card's transactions and realised $21,000 had been transferred out."
Later, the bank informed Ye that a total of 15 transactions had been made, with amounts ranging from $447 to $4,884.
She has since made a police report.
According to Shin Min, Ye isn't the first victim to fall for the scam tactics of this “cleaning company”.
Last week, a 47-year-old woman was scammed out of $4,300 when she tried to engage the services of the same 'cleaning company' – which she also chanced upon on Facebook.
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