It started with him liking me on coffee meets bagel in mid may and he asked to move to whatspp the next day. he claimed to be an only child, widower, canadian born with s'porean parents, now a PR. He stays at Bishan, works in oil & gas and drives a mercedes c400.

We conversed and text as much as four times daily throughout the 4 month experience. he serenaded to me and even sent me song lists, music and video links. I requested for video chat but he claimed his phone screen was broken. i insisted but all i saw was a black screen which he probably covered up the camera although he could see me.

He claimed to have flown to turkey in early June after passing a covid19 test. soon after he had a lot of problems from a fire causing injuries to workers who required hospitalisation, machines were damaged and he had malaria. due to being offshore, he claimed difficulty transferring funds from his offshore bank account at the oil rig so he provided me access to his account. after helping him with 2 transactions, his account was frozen and he started asking for money including money to seek treatment!

I transferred usd33,000 over 4 transactions to a foreign account and 2 local accounts over that period. the final straw was when he requested for help to pay resident tax to his bank, i found out he wasn't at the quarantine hotel where he claimed to be and the bank contact details he provided were fake. i sought legal advice and reported to the police.

I subsequently found that his phone line was perpetually on airplane mode. the bank website was a fake and the photos of his profile were taken from an instagram account of an american asian.

I felt emotionally betrayed by a very skilful and experienced scammer and it was a bitter lesson.