Thorny situation: Woman buys durians online, loses $50k life savings after downloading third-party app

It's hard to resist a good deal, especially when it comes to durians. 

And for one woman, her love for the king of fruits cost her quite dearly. 

The 50-year-old woman, surnamed Xu, came across a couple of Facebook advertisements for a durian promotion marking a kilogram of Musang durian for just $6, reported Lianhe Zaobao on May 10.

She eventually caved in to her cravings and contacted the durian stall TMZ Fresh last Thursday (May 4) to order durians for her family. 

"The other party replied that the company is currently running a promotion where the Musang King durian is going for $6 per kilogram, while the D24 durian is going for $3 per kilogram," she shared. 

After confirming details like delivery timings, the other party asked for her mobile number and said someone from customer service would follow up with her. 

Later on, another man, whom Xu said sounded like a Malaysian, contacted and asked her to download an app called E2 Mall, where she was asked to enter her personal information to apply for a membership. 

However, when Xu tried to use the app to make an online payment, it kept getting declined. 

That customer service staff asked her to go down to a bank on Saturday (May 6) to get a bank token. She also entered her bank information into the third-party application. 

Left with $7 in bank account

Xu only realised that she had been scammed the next day when she was trying to use PayNow to pay for a meal. 

Upon logging into her bank account, she discovered that about $50,000 had been withdrawn, leaving her with just $7. 

"I found out that on Saturday, there were two unauthorised transfers in my account. The first transfer was $27,549 and the second was $26,231. These are my life savings," she told the Chinese publication. 

Horrified, she called the police and notified her bank. 

Responding to AsiaOne's queries, the police confirmed that a report was lodged and investigations are ongoing. 

Resurgence of phishing scams: Police 

The police issued an advisory last month warning members of the public about the resurgence of phishing scams involving malware installed on victims' Android phones. 

The scams would come in the form of advertisements for home services or the sale of food items via social media messaging platforms like Facebook and Instagram on their Android mobile devices.

Victims would contact the scammers via social messaging platforms or WhatsApp and the scammers would send a uniform resource locator (URL) to the victim. 

According to the police advisory, the scammers would then inform the victims to download the application found at the URL in order to book the services or purchase the food items, and to make payment.

Victims would then be directed to fake internet banking login sites to key in their i-banking credentials and/or credit card or debit card information, to make payment within the application.

These applications would contain malware that would redirect the victim’s banking credentials and SMS OTPs from the victims’ phones to the scammers.

Since March 2023, at least 113 victims have fallen prey, with total losses amounting to at least $445,000. 

"Members of the public are advised not to download any suspicious Android Package Kit (APK) files on their devices as they may contain phishing malware," said the police in the advisory. 

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melissateo@asiaone.com