My hubby tried to help his client and lost $S1.2 million to a scam. I thought of leaving him
John’s client was a love-scam victim who needed to borrow S$30,000. But after he helped out, the scammers asked for more. His wife Jane talks about dealing with the fallout.
When John fell victim to a scam and ended up losing S$1.2 million, his wife Jane had to deal with the fallout. Yet, their family survived. (Illustration: Rafa Estrada)
Name: Jane (pseudonym), Late 30s
Status: Married, homemaker, living in Singapore
Imagine you’re someone who lacked for nothing in your life. Then you suddenly must dig around in your drawers for any loose change, just so you can afford groceries.
That’s what we had to do when my husband got caught up in his client’s love scam.
Let’s call ourselves John and Jane. Financially, we were doing well — he’s in the finance sector, I’m a homemaker and we have four children — when his client, Pam (not her real name), approached him for money in 2018.
She was a widow who’d been speaking to her online lover for about a year, and the latter said he’d sent her a parcel with gold inside that was stuck at Singapore Customs.
She said she needed to borrow S$30,000 to pay them. She promised John 6 per cent of what she’d get.
Because they’d known each other for more than 10 years, he wanted to help her. He also wanted the 6 per cent, so he transferred the money. That’s how it started.
THEIR STORIES FIT TOGETHER
After the first payment, the scammers continued to contact Pam, who asked John for a few more transfers, which totalled S$287,000 just for the parcel’s release.
It snowballed from there: A stamp duty of S$140,700, a late fee of S$155,000. In total, he transferred S$582,700 to her. By then, he’d even taken out a S$100,000 loan and borrowed another S$100,000 from his mother.
He told me they kept saying there were only 48 hours left, 24 hours left, and kept pressuring him to make timely payments.
Otherwise the interest would go up and the charges would keep coming. But after he settled one payment, there was another.
The scammers used all sorts of excuses. They said the courier was stuck at the airport and we needed to make a payment to the United Nations. At another time, they wanted to fine Pam for money laundering because there was gold in the package.
Then the scammers said her lover was in hospital. John even spoke to the lover’s “son”, who asked him to help his father.
it was a convincing scam because there seemed to be many different people. And their stories fit together even after John communicated with them by email and over the telephone, so he thought it sounded okay.
PLAYING CAT AND MOUSE
I didn’t know anything about it all this while.
Usually, I’m the one managing the finances at home, but because I’d just given birth, I let John handle it. We’d also just sold our flat, so we’d received a lump sum payment.
I found out only when a mutual friend called me out of the blue and said she was looking urgently for my husband because he’d borrowed money from her.
I immediately knew something was very wrong. We had more than S$600,000 in our bank account, so why would he need to borrow money?
I asked him about it, but he brushed me off, so I checked our bank account late at night when he was asleep. That’s when I found out that all our money was gone.
I woke him up and asked what was going on, but he kept telling me: “I’ll settle it.” It took two to three days of questioning before he told me the story.
At first, I was confused about what was going on. But as John kept transferring money, I started becoming angry and sad.
I thought of leaving him at one point, but after speaking to a friend of mine, I realised he was a good husband and father. It’s just that he wasn’t thinking right this time.
So I wanted to help him as much as I could. Our friends and family knew him to be a responsible guy. People trusted him and actually lent him money.
We thought Pam was working with the scammer. But it turned out that she was a victim too.
It was a very hard time for us.
I checked on his bank account every night while he was asleep, only to realise he’d transferred money again.
I tried everything to stop him. I tried to reason with him. I even got him to go for counselling. This went on for months.
It got to the point where I’d transfer all the money I could out of his bank account on his payday before he transferred it to the scammers, like playing cat and mouse. I gave him only what we agreed he needed, like for transport and food.
Although he made a police report, he continued to transfer money.
I even spoke to one of the scammers at one point and scolded him. I said: “You’re so heartless leh. You cheated a widow, and now you’re cheating my husband of so much money.”
But they’re rubbish lah. They vehemently denied scamming him. They kept saying the same old thing: “Actually, we’re helping your husband.”
During this period, I could tell my husband wasn’t thinking coherently. In other areas of his life, he was able to function properly, but when it came to this scam, he believed that giving money was the only way.
It might have started out as a bit of greed on his part, but I think it got to the point where he feared losing more money if he didn’t make the transfers quickly.
It was only in January 2019, five months after he first started transferring money, when he woke up and smelt the coffee. We’d gone to see the police for a follow-up interview, and the policeman told him sternly that he could transfer money all he wanted, but he wouldn’t get back a cent.
By this time, he’d transferred S$1.2 million in total. He owed his boss S$130,000, and the bank S$150,000. He also owed the credit card companies more than S$80,000.
PICKING UP THE PIECES
We had to pay off all our debts.
I treated it as a challenge. I broke down the money we owed people into smaller amounts and paid them in instalments. Each time we made a payment, I marked it down, and it’d give me a sense of achievement.
When John got bonuses for working hard, we’d use the money to clear the bank debt first. I also read up on how to clear debt.
We felt really happy and a feeling of accomplishment when we paid off the last debt — to my mother —this year.
What this experience taught me is, it’s very important that victims tell their loved ones what has happened to them.
I get it — many will feel shame at falling victim to a scam and want to manage it themselves. When I asked John why he didn’t tell me, he said he could settle it himself because he was always the sort to keep things to himself.
But if he’d talked to me earlier, maybe we could’ve cut our losses.
Some people might call victims stupid, but victims feel at that moment that giving in is the only way. It’s like people who are in toxic relationships: We don’t understand why they can’t just leave that person.
Even now, I don’t fully understand why John fell for it. But we can’t give up on them, we can’t label them, and we can’t scold them.
If your family member shares a story like this with you, I hope you can show empathy and support and help them in any way they need.
In the end, your family will be all right. Ours is after all.
