SINGAPORE: The police have warned of lucky draw and e-commerce scams involving livestreams on social media platforms, with total losses of at least S$160,000 (US$123,500) since August.
There have been at least 30 lucky draw scams and 13 e-commerce scams reported since August, said the Singapore Police Force (SPF) in a news release on Saturday (Oct 18). The scams involved platforms like Facebook.
In lucky draw scams, victims would come across Facebook livestreams promoting scratch cards offering the chance to win cash prizes.
After purchasing the scratch cards, victims would be asked to transfer more money, purportedly to “upgrade” their chances of winning or to increase the amount of the cash prizes.
“In some cases, the scammers enticed the victims to do so by allowing deferred payment,” said SPF.
When the victims “won”, they would be asked to transfer money again for various reasons, such as administrative fees, to receive their winnings.
