Retiree clicks curry ad and loses $33k; money lock saves rest of funds

She knew all about the latest scam trends and had been warning her friends not to fall for them.

- David Sun

But Kelly, not her real name, a retiree in her mid-60s, loves fish head curry. So when she saw an advertisement for the dish on Facebook, she clicked on it to place an order.

This allowed scammers to hijack her phone and siphon about $33,000 from her bank accounts.

Fortunately, the rest of her savings with OCBC Bank had been protected by the money lock feature, which allows users to lock up a specified portion of their funds. That money can be withdrawn only in person at a branch or an ATM. This is the first such reported case of the money lock effectively thwarting scammers, said OCBC.

Kelly said she saw the ad on Facebook on the morning of Sept 5. “I’ve always been telling others not to fall for scams on Facebook, where I’ve seen a lot of these kinds of ads for food,” she said. “But when I saw fish head curry, I let my guard down.”

The ad led her to WhatsApp, where a man told her about the different portions and prices of fish head curry that was supposedly available.

He even told Kelly the cook was purportedly from an eatery in Defu. But to place an order, she would have to download an app.

This was actually malware disguised as a delivery service.