Met this guy called Ryan Heng on CMB (coffee meet bagel) app in may 2019. claims the following:
- moved to los angeles from singapore when he was a teen. dad passed away, left with mom who lives in canada.
- entrepreneur dealing in tech venture capital, after chatting on whatsapp daily for about two months , he said he won a contract with perenco oil and gas to construct an oil rig in turkey. sent me pic of the contract.
- continued to talk on google hangouts while he was on the rig because IT security restrictions did not allow him to bring his mobile phone, so had to use a palmtop.
- told me he wanted to visit me in SG after completing the contract, talked about purchasing a property in sg and moving to sg because his mom was singaporean and wanted to move back to SG.
- one day in early sep 2019, asked me to do a favour to get 2 $100 ITUNes gift card for him to purchase apps as his anti-virus is outdated. i did not think twice and got it for him.
- two days later, he claims one of the control panel on the oil rig was faulty and he needed to rent from a supplier in order to get the job completed before perenco board of directors come for final inspection. he directed me to a dodgy website to help transfer funds to two ukrainian individuals,. transfer did not go through and he asked if i could help with the remaining balance of USD 7k as he only had USD23K with him. Supplier needed USD30K. this was when i realised it was a scam, as the website was very dodgy, did not look like a legitimate bank and google checks showed that the website was only 6 months old.
- told him i have no money and cannot help him. confronted him but he did not admit. showed me his US passport to prove his identity which is likely fake. insisted that he will refund me the $200 once he got onshore.
- throughout the chats, he shared many selfies of the same guy, most likely obtained from identity theft. plot was very elaborate.
- in total, i lost SGD $200. valuable lesson learnt.