I met Sam on CMB in April 2024. According to his profile, he is from Australia but stays in Malaysia and works as a property project developer. Throughout our conversations on the app, he was polite and never pushy. Before our chatroom closed, I gave him my phone number for coffee if he came over to Singapore.

Once we were on WhatsApp, he began professing his love for me, citing that I was different from his previous partners. He even insisted that we both delete our CMB profiles, which he did before me. He was attentive and remembered every detail I shared with him. However, the red flag was his refusal to meet up, even though we were just across the causeway. We chatted over text and WhatsApp calls for close to two months. Over the phone, he sounded Australian and spoke very well.

During this time, he built up a story about rushing to complete his project and meeting me in Singapore in another two months. He also painted a beautiful picture of bringing me home to Sydney to meet his mum. He offered to do video calls, but somehow the video quality was always terrible and barely lasted for 30 seconds.

After nearly two months of being in touch, he shared that the project's investor delayed his payment, and he needed to pay his workers from his personal funds. He also said that, in a bid to meet me earlier, he made the workers work overtime, which depleted his personal funds. He asked me for a loan of SGD 6,000. I refused, but he pestered me endlessly for two days. After this failed attempt, he disappeared, likely realising I was a bad candidate.