My online friend turned out to be a scammer

Anonymous | 27 Jan 2020

Internet Love Scam

I met Philip on the Bumbledate app and we chatted for about 2 months. After chatting for a few weeks, he asked me to use his username and password to log into a bank account because he wanted to check if the client has paid him. Then after a few weeks later, he said he was coming over to Singapore to meet me from Doha which was a transit from Kuwait and showed me a photo of his travel itinerary. On the day of his arrival, I received a phone call from a woman claiming to be from Malaysian customs and she said Philip was being detained at Kuala Lumpur because he brought in excess money and did not declare them. She told me to pay a fine of $5200 on his behalf through a bank transfer. Philip told me that the Malaysian customs had confiscated all of his money and belongings and he could not pay the fine with the money that he had or with a credit card and wanted me to cooperate with them. I called Malaysian customs and they did not detain anyone on that day.