At least 960 victims had fallen for scams involving tickets to Taylor Swift’s concerts, and more than $538,000 was lost. - PHOTO: ST FILE
SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): The sixth and last concert American pop star Taylor Swift held in Singapore was on March 9, but police reports of e-commerce scams involving tickets to The Eras Tour are still coming in.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Aileen Yap, who is also assistant director of the police’s Anti-Scam Command (ASCom), said this in an exclusive interview with The Straits Times on March 11.
AC Yap said the reports lodged include some from victims who bought tickets from resellers and went to the National Stadium, only to discover that the tickets were fake and they could not enter the venue.
In other cases, scammers became uncontactable after receiving money from victims.
AC Yap said: “Within the first few days of Taylor Swift arriving in Singapore, the number of reports relating to concert ticket scams just shot up.”
The police said that between Jan 1 and March 12, at least 1,551 victims had fallen prey to e-commerce scams involving concert tickets, with total losses amounting to at least S$737,000 (RM2.572 million).
At least 960 of these victims had fallen for scams involving tickets to Swift’s concerts, and more than S$538,000 (RM1.89 million) was lost.
AC Yap said: “With more acts coming to Singapore, I’m worried the number of e-commerce scams will increase. If I were to make an assessment, I think e-commerce scams will be the top scam in the first half of 2024 if this trend continues.”
In 2023, the most common ruse victims fell prey to was job scams. E-commerce scams were the second most common scam that year, with 9,783 cases reported and at least S$13.9 million (RM48.5 million) lost.
AC Yap added that most of the e-commerce scam victims who made reports relating to tickets to Swift’s concerts were women aged 30 and below.
Optimism bias – the belief that one is less likely to experience a negative event compared with others – and overconfidence bias – the tendency to overestimate one’s knowledge – are among several factors that could have led some victims to be deceived, explained AC Yap.
“The issue of concert ticket scams is a challenge for us because there isn’t a straightforward way to totally combat it,” she said.
“Perhaps scalping can be regulated, because there are people who make thousands of dollars every time there is a major concert here by buying tickets in bulk and selling them at much higher prices. Others design bots just to purchase tickets at a fast rate.”
AC Yap commended online marketplace Carousell for suspending the sale of tickets to Swift’s concerts on its platform between Feb 23 and March 9 to prevent users from being scammed.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Aileen Yap said most e-commerce scam victims who made reports relating to tickets to Swift’s concerts were females aged 30 and below. - ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH
Carousell’s chief of staff Tan Su Lin said on March 13 that amid the rush for tickets, users were not catching on to scam indicators, such as sellers’ ratings that show if other buyers had found them to be reliable.
Scammers also targeted victims on other platforms such as Facebook, X, Telegram and Xiaohongshu, said AC Yap.
She added: “I’m concerned because as Singapore looks to host more concerts, we may have to anticipate more of such scams. Scammers can take advantage of these major concerts to proliferate their business.”
Earlier in March, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong said actively courting big stars, events and opportunities is part of the Singapore Sports Hub’s new “hustle”, as Singapore looks to become a cultural hub.
The Straits Times earlier reported economists estimating that Swift’s six concerts here could boost Singapore’s economy by up to S$500 million in tourism receipts.
Meanwhile, some experts believe that while scams need to be tackled, the growing number of scam reports will not affect Singapore’s reputation as a cultural hub.
National University of Singapore business professor Lawrence Loh said: “Singapore’s standing as a cultural hub is because of our infrastructure, facilities, connectivity and overall landscape. Scams should be closely watched, but I believe it will not affect the reputation we have for holding events well.”
In fact, enforcement efforts by the authorities to clamp down on concert ticket scammers show foreigners that Singapore does not take scams lightly, he added.
Prof Loh noted the arrest of a 29-year-old woman who allegedly cheated victims of more than S$24,000 on the pretext of selling tickets to Swift’s concerts.
Another growing scam of concern here in the past year is that relating to malware, said AC Yap.
It was the sixth most common scam in 2023. There were 1,899 such cases reported, with S$34.1 million lost.
AC Yap recounted a case in which a 50-year-old widow with two sons, aged 10 and 12, almost lost S$110,000 to a malware scam.
Most of the money in her bank account was from the life insurance payout of her husband, who died in 2022.
Said AC Yap: “She downloaded a file on Facebook thinking she could use it to pay for groceries. But after she keyed in her banking details, her phone was compromised and money was transferred out of her DBS account.”
DBS Bank informed ASCom, whose officers tracked the funds to another bank and asked that the money be held there. Meanwhile, another officer called the victim to tell her she had fallen for a scam.
But the victim did not believe the officer was legitimate, said AC Yap.
She said: “When we tried to call her again, she blocked the number on her phone, and we couldn’t get through to her.”
The officer went to her home, but she was not in. Ironically, she had gone to make a police report.
AC Yap said: “Because of the swift intervention of the officers, we managed to prevent her from losing her life savings and the insurance payout.”
Staff from six banks – DBS, OCBC, UOB, Standard Chartered, HSBC and CIMB – and the Government Technology Agency have been deployed at ASCom to tackle scam incidents more quickly.
Carousell’s staff joined them on Jan 30.
From March 20, Shopee will be the second e-commerce platform to station staff at ASCom.
AC Yap said: “No matter the amount lost, I always feel such pain for the victims. When they call us, they’re crying and are inconsolable, and some even say they want to take their lives.
“This gives me the motivation to do whatever I can to help them, especially since we know that scams will continue to prevail.
“Because, with the advancement in technology and our strong connectivity, I don’t think we can completely eradicate scams in the near future.” - The Straits Times/ANN
