'All of our hard-earned money': Woman details how an Instagram ad selling $2 dim sum led her bank account to be compromised

First it was a scam involving a man who wanted to purchase otah from Facebook, who after downloading an app, realised his bank account had been compromised.

It seems a variation of this phishing scam has made its way to popular social media site Instagram as well.

When a woman ordered some dim sum for $2 off the platform, she discovered her card limit had been raised to $20,000 the following day.

Thankfully, her husband managed to intervene in time and they did not suffer any losses.

According to Shin Min Daily News, Mrs He, 57, chanced upon a dim sum advertisement on Instagram.

A shop known as 'Mcy Frozen Food' was offering a packet of 12 siew mai, five glutinous chicken rice and 300g of steamed pork ribs at just $2 each.

Attracted by the low price, she reached out to the seller via Instagram. She then received a link which took her to a WhatsApp chat with the seller.

The seller sent her another link to download an application, called '1stMallv1.2', and told her she needed to place her order through the app. 

Mrs He followed the instructions given, but repeatedly encountered errors while trying to submit her personal information for payment.

This, she found out later on, was exactly how the scammers would obtain her information. 

Her 63-year-old husband received an e-mail from the bank the following day, informing him that his wife had requested to raise their account's daily limit to $20,000 at 6am in the morning.

Mr He then called the bank to freeze their account.

The 12-hour period before changes could be implemented meant the scammers did not get away with any money.

He told Shin Min Daily News: We were very scared, as this was all of our hard-earned money. If it was stolen, the consequences would have been dire.

He added that bank staff informed him that there were several such scam cases daily.

The couple have lodged a police report over the matter.

ALSO READ: Gone in 20 minutes: Woman loses $30k after installing fake shopping app on phone

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