Not giving up: Mixed doubles pair Tan Kian Meng will continue to focus on her badminton career with Tan Kian Meng despite being a victim of a scam recently. - S.S.KANESAN/The Star)
PETALING JAYA: Mixed doubles shuttler Lai Pei Jing has opened up on the traumatic incident where she lost almost all her life savings to scammers.
"My scam is known as job scam. Initially, a friend introduced me to a software called Dobevil," said Pei Jing.
"Normally, I would not pay attention to try such things but at that time, I was frustrated with my career, unable to achieve the results that I wanted, which led to anxiety about my future after retirement.
"Therefore, after repeated recommendations of my friend, I took this wrong step. This impulsive decision gave both myself and this software a chance, leading to the current outcome.
"This software is similar to cross-border e-commerce, operating like running your own online store, involving order taking, procurement, manufacture shipping, and buyer signing, while I earn profits in between.
"However, I didn't know the whole software was a scam. I genuinely believed in it. All the order amounts, customer service and buyers were actually controlled by them. The amount I was scammed for became so large because the order amounts gradually increased and I also gradually invested money.
"I started to realise I was being scammed because the order amount became too large to be matched by the merchant's procurement.
"After hesitating for a long time, I finally decided to tell my family what I was facing," added Pei Jing.
Despite the tough time she endured, Pei Jing came out fighting and reached back-to-back semi-finals with Tan Kian Meng in the Indonesian Open and Australian Open.
The 31-year-old also combined for the first time with Lim Chiew Sien in the women's doubles and went all the way to the final in Australia before finishing runners-up.
