Romeo Tan's fan scammed into wedding 'blood vow', loses $5,000

Some things are too good to be true.

A 46-year-old fan of local star Romeo Tan lost $5,500 after chatting online with a person claiming to be the Mediacorp actor.

The victim's sister, an auditor surnamed Yan, told Lianhe Zaobao recently that her sister had been conversing with the impersonator on multiple platforms since December last year and had transferred money to the latter three times.

Screenshots of their chat messages on WhatsApp showed the scammer saying they wanted to marry the victim in New York but she needed to transfer $3,000 over to pay for a marriage certificate.

The scammer even sent a photo showing them poking their fingertip for a "blood vow" and encouraged her to do the same, saying, "This is not a game, you have to keep our promise."

After proposing that they stay in New York and that they would buy her a diamond ring and luxury car, they told her to fork out an additional $2,000 so that the "agent" could apply for a permit and buy a plane ticket for her.

It didn't stop there. After contacting the "agent", the scammer asked her to purchase more than $2,000 worth of gaming cards.

After she told them that the cards in the convenience store were sold out and some stores had stopped selling them due to frequent scams, they immediately sent her the addresses of several stores that still had the goods in stock.

They also taught her to tell the sales staff the cards were for her children if they asked.

Whenever she hesitated, the scammer would bring up their blood vow and tell her that if she was truly in love, she would purchase the cards.

The victim's family discovered what was happening after she tried borrowing money from Yan.

Yan also found that her sister had not only lost $3,000 of "marriage certificate fees", but also $2,500 of "membership fees", eating up almost all the victim's savings.

Yan has called the police on behalf of her sister, adding the latter are now investigating the scam.

She added that her sister usually leaves comments under Romeo's posts on his official Facebook page and some accounts pretending to be him would reply to her comments. She believes that this is how the scammer found her sister.

According to Yan, the victim works part-time and is mentally unstable, and did not believe her family when they told her she was scammed.

"These scammers will only go after vulnerable people who are easy to deceive and simply incapable of protecting themselves. The people most directly affected are their family members. I hope that Romeo Tan, as a public figure, could manage his Facebook page properly," remarked Yan.

'I would never ask for money'

Romeo, 38, made a Facebook post last week, indicating that he recently received several scam alerts regarding people impersonating him on Facebook and Instagram.

[[nid:667119]]

"I want to remind everyone to be vigilant and aware that I will never ask my followers for money or suggest meeting up for a private meal. I am deeply sorry for anyone who has been affected by this," he wrote, adding that he will be turning off or restricting the comments section on his accounts.

After seeing Romeo's clarification, the victim reached out to Zaobao, telling them that she is now aware that she was deceived and regretted sending the money to the scammer.

"I had a video call with the scammer and he looked very stiff when he spoke. I have been Romeo's fan for more than 10 years, and I didn't expect (the person online) to be a liar."

This is not the first time Romeo was impersonated in scams.

In 2020, he revealed that someone had taken his video clips and added their own voice over them to ask a Thai netizen for $1,300.

The netizen didn't know who Romeo was and spoke with the impersonator for seven months before getting suspicious when she was asked for money.

[[nid:658885]]

syarifahsn@asiaone.com