Woman loses $1,000 to investment scam on Telegram, police investigating
A woman fell victim to an investment scam on Telegram, losing $1,000.
Stomper Melissa shared that she was lured into joining what seemed to be a legitimate gold trading group on Telegram on Aug 12.
In the group named "Trading Pit Signal (OFFICIAL)", the group's admin "Mubarak Abdul" would send out signals that would help traders make a profit.
"At the same time, they kept promoting an investment plan where for example, one would invest $2,000 and get back $40,000," she said.
"They claimed they would invest the money for us and that we would get the profits after a certain number of days."
Melissa decided to put in $1,00 on Oct 7 and was promised a return of $15,000 though she noted that they did not specify what currency she would be paid in.
However, she became suspicious when asked to pay an extra $2,830 shortly before the promised payout on Oct 11.
She was told the extra money was to "unlock the account".
"That's when I knew I got scammed," the Stomper said.
She subsequently contacted Telegram through various channels but was frustrated: "I feel like they are making it hard for people to report scams," she lamented. " It seems they are not taking this issue seriously.
She has since lodged a report to the police.
In response to a Stomp query, the police confirmed a report was lodged and that investigations are ongoing.
Melissa hopes to spread awareness of such scams on Telegram and get the platform to do more to prevent scammers from using it to dupe people.
"Unfortunately, I was naive even when I knew the deal was too good to be true but I also had confidence in the blue tick next to the admin's account which I believed was a confirmation that the user is verified," she said.
"I was lucky I only lost $1,000 to these scammers.
"I hope more people are aware that such scammers exist as I feel this one was tricky and many people will fall for this."
