Woman transfers $400 to Thailand for S'pore Pools ticket after seeing Facebook post, gets scammed

It is not something she is proud of.

A woman lost $400 after responding to a Facebook post and wants to share what happened so others don't fall for the same scam.

"I know it is embarrassing that I got scammed, but I still would like the media to know and create awareness. That is my main motive," said Stomper Low.

It started on Oct 17 when she saw a post by a Facebook user named Gentlmen’s Agreement that read: "Power huat! Congrats to all customers! Next one. Interested contact us inbox or WhatsApp for details."

This was followed by a Singapore mobile number.

The post included a photo of a hand holding a $29,000 UOB cheque from Singapore Pools and a Singapore Pools "Pick The Score" betting slip for a French League football match between Brest and Toulouse on Oct 8.

The Stomper said: "It contained all the betting predictions and a photo of the ticket and a cheque on hand. Almost all of the posts have someone commenting 'a great win'.

"I was pretty skeptical, but due to some personal reason, I wanted to earn some extra income and decided to join."

The Stomper messaged Gentlmen's Agreement on Oct 20.

"They instructed me to PromptPay (a Thai version of PayNow) $400, which was supposed to be the first transfer and they would send me the ticket that they drew from Singapore Pools for me to bet. The result is usually on the same week," recounted the Stomper, who transferred the money to a Thai bank account as instructed.

"They claimed they needed two to three hours for verification, which I found to be amiss. When they communicated with me through Messenger, they took only a few minutes to reply. But they were so inefficient when verifying a payment.

"Nearly three hours later, they replied that their upper management gave instruction that I had to transfer an additional $400 on top of the $400 I had transferred to them, which made it a total of $800."

She refused.

"They tried to convince me that as assurance, they could send me that ticket first, but the transfer needed to be made.

"I got inconsistent statements from them. They told me an overseas source provided them with the match information, but they later changed and said actually, the ticket was with them.

"I felt the whole thing was a red flag. I only transferred $400 and I went again to block them."

She called the bank to reverse the transaction, but the bank told her it was not reversible as she used PromptPay and this case was considered illegal online betting.

Having learnt her lesson, the Stomper said: "Never believe in easy money and this kind of betting is true.

"They are just out to con people. This explains why they can wear a Rolex watch."

She was not the only one who fell for the scam, it seems.

On Friday (Oct 27), someone else, who was apparently also conned by the same scammers, shared a similar "Huat ah!" post in the "Singapore scam alert" Facebook group, warning: "Scammer back with different name. Previously called Gentlemen's Agreement... Will promise some soccer tip but take money and run. Ticket and cheque fake one, use Photoshop can do."

The new username is Steady Alex, but the phone number is the same.

The photo is still of a hand holding a cheque and betting slip, but the amount is $65,000 and the football match is different.