As a victim of online scams, crimes like this are something I cannot forgive.
I was but a young and naive man who placed too much trust in humanity. The scammer approached me in a friendly manner. It was only when I lost tens of thousands and she disappeared that I realised she was only in it for the money.
I can never forgive you, xXSexyGurl93Xx! Damn you for cheating my feelings and Mesos! We even talked about reaching Level 200 together!
Editor: Wait, what? Dammit, are you talking about Maplestory? Wait a min, in the first place, tens of thousands of Maple money isn’t even that much!
A person’s feelings cannot be measured by money!
But to the readers out there, know that crimes like this still prevail at large, and are even more common nowadays.
I’m talking:
S$38 Million Lost To Impersonation Scams In 2019
Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam, according to ChannelNewsAsia, said that impersonation scams have increased in the past three years, of which three types are the most alarming: China officials impersonation scams, social media impersonation scams, and tech support scams.
From Jan 2019 to Nov 2019, there were 401 cases of China officials impersonation scams, scamming a total of S$18.8 million. For comparison, in 2017 there were only 188 cases for an amount of S$12.8 million scammed.
Social impersonation scams had 672 cases from Jan 2019 to Nov 2019, for a total of S$7.2 million. This is a whopping 10-fold increase from 71 cases in 2017 scamming S$168,000.
In social media impersonation scams, scammers pretend to be friends or family members of victims.
Tech support scams also went up to 224 cases scamming at least S$12 million from 53 cases scamming only S$36,000.
If my eyes aren’t deceiving me, that’s a 300 times increase in amount scammed.
Tech support scammers pretend to be the staff of telco companies or law enforcement officers and trick victims into installing malicious software on their computers.
You can check out content creators like Jim Browning who frequently exposes online scammers (these tend to be tech support) for examples:
That’s not all. That S$38 million scammed in 2019 doesn’t include the S$32 million scammed by email scammers impersonating business partners or employees.
You might think that scams like this only happen to the older and less tech-literate generation.
But you’re wrong.
Victims Aged 20s to 40s Account For More Than Half
Think about it. Who are the ones getting scammed on Maplestory, huh?!
More than half the victims of China officials impersonation scams in 2019 were below the age of 30. Victims in their 20s to 40s made up 60% of all social media scam victims in 2019.
Both the elderly and the young have also fallen for tech support scams.
The data speaks for itself: let’s not assume that only a certain demographic are stupid enough to fall for such obvious scams. We’re all equally stupid and equally likely to be scammed.
Oh xXSexyGurl93Xx, is there not a chance you might come back online?
Editor: Should we… should we tell him that xXSexyGurl93Xx probably isn’t a real girl…?
