Newest scam, are you the next victim?
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My name is Steven Tan. I am currently working as an engineer in Singapore.
In January 2013, I have known this guy Alfred through a friend. He claimed that he was doing some big business and knew a lot of big people. He said he was looking for investors and persuaded me to join him. Seeing my friend had also put in a lot of money into Alfred’s business, I was persuaded by him and passed him my savings of SGD 50,000.
Since then, we had met for a few times privately. He behaved like a rich guy and had been quite generous when paying bills for meal. He had even showed me his newly bought Toyota Camry and assured me that the business was going smoothly. He also told me that he had another 50 to 60 investors with him, so the risk was minimum.
In May 2013, Alfred told me that there was a big opportunity and asked me to put in more money with him. When I told him I didn’t have the cash, he persuaded me to take bank loans. I was reluctant initially, but he was persistent and eventually persuaded me. I had signed up an overdraft of SGD 150,000 and passed it to him. He said he will pay for the interest plus give me the profit monthly.
In August 2013, Alfred stopped paying the interest. He told me the business didn’t go well and he had lost a lot of money. He even asked me to lend him more money to recover his business. When I refused and asked him to return me the money, he kept delaying and finally told me that he could only return me SGD 10,000 and the rest have to wait until he had sorted things out.
My friend is facing the same problems, and he is only earning about SGD 2000 per month. After putting in all his savings, Alfred managed to persuade him to go to several different banks and took up loan of around SGD 70,000 to 80,000. When Alfred stopped paying the interest, he were going to bankrupt if not his parents took out their life savings and saved him. The worst part, Alfred asked my friend to lend him money using reasons such as need more cash to revive the business and need some cash to settle some debt. Out of friendship and kindness, my friend not only used his own money to lend to Alfred, but also borrowed from his friend to lend to Alfred. Alfred kept promising that he would return the money next week or next month, but the truth is he would use some excuses to delay and in the end not paying my friend a single cent.
My friend told me he’s going to make police report because he felt like being cheated. After some discussion, we think that this is a Ponzi scheme, or Alfred was not doing business all along and used the money on something illegal.
If you have any friends or family working or staying in Singapore or JB, please let them know about this guy. If you are a victim of his scheme, I urge you to go to report to police in Singapore to protect yourself. If he is really doing something illegal and is caught, only those who have reported to police will be innocent, otherwise, you may become his accomplice. Last I heard, people have gone to report police and the police are actively investigating the case. If Alfred happens to contact you to get money from you, you better say no and protect your money.
Please share this out so that no one will be his next victim.
Summary of Alfred’s method of operation:
1. He will tell you he runs a big business and persuade you to put in money with him.
2. After gaining your trust, he will persuade you to go to several banks to take up bank loans.
3. Then, he will tell you that he is facing some problems and will start to borrow money from you, and ask you to go and borrow more from your friends and family. All the money that you have put in with him will be conveniently lost.
4. He will come out with plans and ideas to recover the lost money, but all of them need you to put more money into them. If you still trust him, you will bleed to death eventually because he will break all of his promises and you won’t get back a single cent.
Description:
Alfred (I think his surname is Loi or Lei), age around 40 to 50, tall and big size. He was driving in his black Toyota Camry when I saw him last. His phone numbers last four digits are 9076 and 9340.
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no need your advice. when you met him you should have approached me i could have adviced you otherwise.
this type fo situation can easiy be avoided - its child playing marble. you yourself greedy partly to blame for falling into this. what ever busingess we do there will be risks. youhave to accept it a ove on.
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You believed in friendship? Luckily at least it is your money that is been conned, in worst case scenario it would be like this :
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You are greedy lah. Don't be greedy, there's no free lunch in this world.
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You are a judgemental fool laa, don't be amjudgemental fool. No one is perfect in this world.
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there's no victiom in this case.
only greedy people who cried 'victim' after they got fooled.
post in AA mayb we comfort you.
you post here also no use. it will fall into deaf ears. people know oif such stuff yet they still will fall for it , only the case pattern case only but the principle is still the same.
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It just like this wedding 'scam' story where people trust their 'friends' like they are their precious and start to cry father cry mother when things go wrong, instead of doing their homework : http://sgforums.com/forums/1520/topics/474609
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credulity + cupidity
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stoopig
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U shld be smarter, if u know he is a cheater, play along with him for free meals(lol), or go report him or tell him u hv no money and is scared of bank loans.
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Are you for real?!
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But in the first place why you do it when the scammer ask you to do so?
Next time you came across this, just ignore everything and report the case to the police.
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Well, since we are here, i would like to say that you are really lucky.. there are way better scams that the "alferd" could pull off, and i'd like to simply explain some of this... well, for scams to work, they will need you to pay them, in response to something else, such as they rumor to have kidnapped your child, your parents got into a car crash and they need money, blah blah blah, then they ask for payment and thats it.. for other scams, they are worse, there are some scams in this world of which the one who got scammed gets paid! and earns more than he "invested" the scamer starts by asking for cash around a small group, and using his own money, return a percentage interest, then, he says that he needs more cash and investments, and ask you to persue your families and friends, even if you invest 1k, he;d still give you cash like, 200 then, he would ask for more, usually not from you, but ask you to introduce to your family, eventually, he pays using the other people's money to the first layer of people, who attracts even more people untill it snowballs, like that of an upsidedown pyramid, then, he vanishes, taking most of the money and returning only a part of it, and the people who earns it have no clue its even a scam and has "killed" his friends and families. Yours is better, if this comforts you... on a side note, you are way too damm greedy... i mean, why? he didnt pay you back what you started with! dont invest more inside, plus, its like like he couldnt goto the bank hiimself or goto bigger companies! think when you pay!
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is this Alfred one of the Sunshine Empire's æ»å‰©ç¨®ï¼Ÿ