Beware of scammers posing as Shopee employees on WhatsApp offering part-time jobs 'liking' products

At least 46 people lost a total of at least $753,000 to scammers posing as employees of Shopee or other known companies since March, said police.

Stomper Lim might have encountered one of those scammers.

He shared a screenshot of a WhatsApp message that said: "Hi, I'm Cassey, we're real Shopee likes Part-time jobs mainly help Shopee merchants increase their popularity."

A message went on to say that you earn up to $300 a day just by following a store and "liking" its items.

The Stomper asked: "Shopee has this kind of part-time job that can earn money? How many kinds of scams are there?"

On Monday (May 22). the police and Shopee Singapore released a joint advisory on a scam where victims would receive unsolicited WhatsApp or Telegram messages from a scammer pretending to be a Shopee employee.

The scammer would ask the victim to like items displayed on Shopee or participate in a Shopee survey to earn a small fee.

In more recent cases, scammers adopted s more sophisticated approach to deceive victims, using easily obtainable information to craft personalised messages and creating fake employee identification to appear more convincing.

Victims who completed the survey would then be offered a higher-paying role of a “Shopee Assistant” by the scammer impersonating a Shopee customer service personnel or a Shopee mentor.

These tasks began with registering an account with a fake Shopee website, where victims would be instructed to choose a pre-paid “task package” and transfer money to bank accounts provided by scammers before the victims were able to start “work”.

Victims often receive their increased earnings in the initial phase and would be convinced to top up their accounts to receive more earnings.

They would only realise they had been scammed when they could not withdraw their earnings or when the scammers could no longer be contacted.

The advisory said that Shopee will only contact you via official channels, such as the Shopee App, Shopee’s verified social media and Whatsapp accounts, or email addresses that end with shopee.com.

Shopee does not require anyone to pre-pay to secure a job and does not offer payment in exchange for likes on products on their platform.

If you have any concerns or clarifications, contact Shopee Customer Service at +65 6206 6610 or chat with live agents in the Shopee app.