Pregnant woman loses $198 to scammers after ordering tingkat meals on Facebook

The New Paper
December 19, 2023

All she wanted was the convenience of ordering meals in advance as she is pregnant.

But now, she no longer dares to order food via Facebook after she ended up being scammed twice. 

The pregnant woman, Ms Lin, told Shin Min Daily News she found four caterers on Facebook and enquired about their prices. 

The 40-year-old proceeded to place orders with two of them – “MamaDish” and “Ci Xin Vegetarian Restaurant”. 

She paid $196 for a month’s worth of dinner from “MamaDish” and transferred $2 to “Ci Xin” after ordering two dinner bentos from them.

But the meals never materialised. 

On the day of delivery, “MamaDish” sent her a message to say that their chef had got into an accident. Ms Lin was asked if they could deliver the meals to her the following week or if she wanted a refund. 

“Before I could even reply, they blocked my number. I couldn’t find their Facebook page either,” she said. 

In the other scam, “Ci Xin” sent her a link to download an app so she could pay for her order. 

“My husband entered his email address, phone number and delivery address [into the app]. He then went to the bank’s website to key in his account details and password and received a one-time password (OTP) for the transaction,” she said.

“However, before he could key in the OTP, his phone automatically keyed it in. He got a shock and immediately exited the app and the bank’s website.”

Ms Lin’s husband then called his bank to change his account password to prevent the transaction from going through. 

“I’m pregnant and wanted to order dinner in advance, but I didn’t expect to get scammed repeatedly. I no longer dare order food via Facebook,” she said. 

As it turns out, the “real” Ci Xin Vegetarian Restaurant appears to also be a victim of a scam.

On Nov 11, the restaurant, which is based in Kuala Lumpur, warned customers of a fake page with the same name. It said it does not offer food delivery services on Facebook and that it had reported the matter to the Malaysian police.