Did Aileen Tan's husband threaten divorce for money? Scammer gets personal

If a loved one suddenly texts you asking for money, would you agree to it or think something was amiss?

On Tuesday (Oct 31) afternoon, Aileen Tan was watching the local movie Confinement starring Rebecca Lim and Cynthia Koh in the cinema when she received a WhatsApp message from her 'husband'.

The real Halloween horror was that it turned out to be a scammer impersonating him.

The 57-year-old local actress shared the WhatsApp chat log in an Instagram post, writing: "Scam alert! Hubby's handphone WhatsApp got hacked yesterday. Please don't transfer any cash to this scammer's account."

The screengrab even showed her husband's name Gerald Lee as the contact at the top of the chat.

In the chat, the scammer can be seen asking Aileen if she had "transferred the money yet" at 5.43pm, to which Aileen responded that she'd report them to the police. She even attempted several voice calls.

"Let's get a divorce," the scammer wrote, to which Aileen responded: "Ok."

She added in the post caption that she thankfully had no time to "pay attention to" the scammer as she was in the cinema.

"Later, my husband called me personally and told me that [this] scammer had already called his sister in Hong Kong, asking her to transfer money to a bank account. These scammers are so disgusting. Be careful, don't be fooled."

Aileen's audience found her cool response hilarious, with many imitating it in the comments, writing: "Noted, thanks." 

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Aileen elaborated on the incident in an interview with Lianhe Zaobao published yesterday: "He called me his wife and asked me if I had HK$10,000 (S$1,750). He said he bought something online and wanted me to help pay for it temporarily and then he'd pay me back in cash."

Her 'husband' even sent her the account number of a bank in Hong Kong, but as Aileen was watching the local thriller and didn't remember how to transfer money to an overseas bank number, she told 'him' she'd do it later.

The other party then asked her to transfer the money before 6pm, which raised Aileen's suspicions.

"I thought it was strange. My husband was obviously at work so why was he suddenly anxious for me to transfer money?" she wondered.

It was then that she received a WhatsApp voice message from her real husband telling her not to transfer any money, and how the scammer had contacted his sister too, leaving Aileen confused.

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Upon returning home, Aileen had immediately checked her husband's phone and could not find the WhatsApp chat she had had with the scammer on it.

They reported it to WhatsApp and to the police that evening.

Aileen also said that her husband had once connected to the web version of WhatsApp from his work computer, and it may have been a fake web page phishing for account info, resulting in his account getting hacked.

"Fortunately, neither my sister-in-law nor I was deceived," she added. "This is the first time I've encountered such a thing.

"Scammers' tricks are really getting more and more advanced!"

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drimac@asiaone.com