She initially requested to follow me on Instagram, citing a common follower. Without giving it much thought, I accepted the request. Initially, our interactions were casual, and she shared that she works as a fashion designer in Singapore, with a mixed heritage of Malaysian and Taiwanese. Soon after, she inquired about my current job, a common tactic employed by scammers of this kind.

As the conversation progressed, she suggested moving our chat to WhatsApp. Once on that platform, she disclosed her name as "陈蓓琪" and asked for my Chinese name. At this point, my suspicion heightened as the name didn't match the one on Instagram. Upon further investigation, I discovered reports of similar encounters that eventually led to money scams.