Local Yes 933 radio DJ Kenneth Chung was recently conned in a job scam after accepting voiceover work allegedly from a company in the United Kingdom.
The 40-year-old recounted the incident in an Instagram post on April 5, sharing that he was sceptical at first when he received the message, but the scammers correctly pointed out the voiceover artiste website where they got his contact information from.
“I was half-sceptical, half-curious and asked about the job scope, thinking maybe it could actually be legit work,” he said.
Kenneth shared that he was told the task involved recording a manual in Mandarin for the company’s employees and he would receive his salary for the task in stages.
They also asked for his email address, hoping to move the hiring process forward by sending him the relevant documents.
He said: “At that point, I thought, ‘Okay, it seems quite legit, asking for email makes it feels formal.'”
He received an email from the company, which was written and presented professionally with the company name, detailed terms and conditions and sent through a “convincing” email address.
“I was still cautious at the time and did a quick search on the company. I found their website, which was quite professionally done,” Kenneth said, adding he was convinced to accept the task after that.
The recording process was smooth with him receiving a text from them occasionally asking about his work progress.
He only realised something was amiss after he completed the first phase of work and was supposed to receive his remuneration.
Told to pay $280 first to receive his salary
It was a Friday night when the scammer asked Kenneth for his bank details, claiming they had transferred the money to him, and told him to check his account.
He didn’t receive anything, but the company insisted they had already sent it. They also shared a website link where he could communicate with an alleged staff member of said ‘bank’.
“That’s when alarm bells went off for me,” he said.
Kenneth didn’t click on the link given to him because he found it dubious, but the scammer became “pushy”, encouraging him not to wait. He decided he would wait till the following Monday to enquire with a Singapore bank directly.
On Monday morning, he received an email allegedly from the ‘bank’.
“They asked me to pay 163 pounds (S$280) to unlock my remuneration… to prevent money laundering,” he said.
Kenneth decided to check with his bank in Singapore and was told that they had “never heard of such a thing” and it’s likely a scam.
Later, he told the company he is not paying and they should find other ways to transfer his salary to him. The alleged ‘bank’ also attempted to contact him.
He shared: “At that point, I already knew I probably wouldn’t be getting paid but I was just curious how they would respond.
“They said the money had already been transferred and couldn’t be reversed, and kept asking me to contact their ‘bank’, sharing that the latter could make an exception to transfer the money to me.”
‘Scammers are getting smarter’
When the scammers knew that Kenneth wasn’t going to contact their ‘bank’, they suggested an alternative, which was to transfer the money through cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase Wallet.
“Because I was unfamiliar with the platform, I thought I shouldn’t take the risk, so I rejected, and after that, they disappeared,” he said.
Reflecting on the experience, Kenneth said the scariest part was how much effort and time they took to set up the scenario over two weeks to scam him.
He’s glad he realised he was involved in a scam early and not after he had completed the whole voiceover.
He ended the video with: “I’ll take this as a lesson. At the same time, I hope that this is a reminder to people in the same industry and everyone else that no matter how good you are, evil finds a way to stay ahead.
“Scammers are getting smarter. We have to be even more careful.”
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yeo.shuhui@asiaone.com
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