'All my money gone': Bangladeshi migrant in Singapore among victims of online scam

When Sam (not his real name), a migrant worker, accepted a job offer on June 20 last year, all he wanted was to earn more money quickly, so that he could build a bigger and more comfortable home for his family in Bangladesh.

The 45-year-old, who last saw his loved ones in August 2019, said: "I think everyone has plans to build their own house. It is my plan to build a nice house for my family."

Two days later, Sam, who works as a production coordinator in a warehouse in Singapore, lost more than S$11,000 (RM34,644), which is almost equivalent to his salary for a year, to a job scam.

He said that he responded to a WhatsApp message from a foreign number which informed him that he could earn a commission by completing 60 orders on an online portal.

However, he had to deposit some money into a bank account first.

Last year, there were 3,181 migrant workers who were victims of scams, up from 1,965 in 2020, said the Singapore police.

About 357 domestic workers were scammed last year, an increase from the 216 in 2020.

As at December last year, there were 246,300 migrant domestic workers in Singapore and 318,400 work permit holders in the construction, marine and process sectors, according to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) of the country.

The police said they work closely with MOM and non-profit organisations to share the latest crime trends and anti-scam advisories with workers.

S11 Dormitories, which has about 13,000 occupants across its two facilities in Punggol and Changi, said it is working with the police to organise talks.

A spokesman said the upcoming talks will be conducted "in our dormitories by officers who will explain the different types of scams migrant workers may be susceptible to".

Ethan Guo, general manager of Transient Workers Count Too, said migrant workers generally fall victim to employment scams.

"One needs to only go on Facebook to look at the many job ads that target migrant workers. They look very similar to posts by registered employment agents and therefore, to an untrained eye, impossible to tell one apart from another," he added.

A spokesman for the Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Social Support and Training said it saw a high number of SMS loan scams among domestic workers last year. The messages offer loans with a low administrative charge.

It added that the pandemic caused some family members of these workers to lose their income, increasing the need for the workers to support their families.

Typically, these scams require victims to make a deposit before the loan can be disbursed.

Amy (not her real name), 40, a domestic worker from Myanmar, became a victim on Feb 20, 2020, when she received a call through messaging application Viber.

She spoke to a man who claimed to be a bank staff and wanted to "update" her ATM card. She gave details, such as its personal identification number. After three hours on the phone, Amy sensed something amiss and hung up. She went to an ATM near her.

"I only had S$45 left in my account, my money is gone. This whole (experience) made me very scared. The other day I received a call from someone with a Ministry of Manpower photo ... But I never answer (now) if it's a number I don't know," she said.

Copyright: The Straits Times/ Asia News Network