He’s also been targeted by scammers through text messaging apps, he said. “Someone called me and said, ‘Mr Tan! Long time no see.’ I said, ‘I’m Miss Lee.’ They said, ‘Sorry, Miss Lee, I made a mistake.’ That’s when I knew it wasn’t legit.”
His colleague, actress Hong Hui Fang, was nearly scammed, too, he divulged. “Someone pretending to be her friend called her and asked for a transfer of money. They sounded exactly like her friend. She was going to make the transfer, but she forgot the amount, so she called her friend, who said they hadn’t called her. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it’s something that shouldn’t have happened.”
On one occasion, he tried to order fish from his usual supplier, but was treated with suspicion. “Turns out, these days, many people are placing orders and not collecting them or paying for them.”
His father was also targeted by scammers, he shared. Chen stopped his dad as he was on his way out of the house to meet someone at a gas station to give them money after receiving a phone call. He believes his father was hypnotised over the phone, he said.
