Couple lose $1.3 million in scam
August 12, 2013 - 12:30am
By: Andre Joseph Theng
TNP PICTURE: Andre Joseph Theng
For several months, housewife Monica Garg (above) could only watch helplessly as 405,000 euros (S$680,000) in her bank account lay stuck, promised to a scammer overseas.
And late last month, her worst fears were realised as the money was finally siphoned off.
That amount was just half of the amount Mrs Garg, a Singaporean PR from India, claims she and her husband lost in a scam to a West African businessman.
The money, totalling 805,000 euros, is the couple’s life savings.
Mr Garg said: “I don’t know what to do now. Losing the money is like losing my children. It was my first time, and probably my last time, to ever invest my money.”
She hopes that others would not follow her example and be lured by the promise of high returns.
“I want to tell them that whatever looks lucrative may not be so. The pain of losing is much more than the happiness of gaining,” she said.
