Despite facing serious penalties, including a jail sentence of up to 10 years, more young people in Singapore are getting caught up in e-commerce scams. These scams resulted in victims losing a total of $8.3 million in the first half of 2022 and involved people posting products for sale and not delivering the items.
Police data shows that almost 60% of those arrested for their involvement in e-commerce scams between January and October were 29 years old or younger, with 121 individuals arrested in total, including 15 young people under the age of 19 and 56 people between the ages of 20 and 29. The number of e-commerce scam cases has doubled from 2021 to 2022, with 2,267 cases reported in the first half of 2022 compared to 1,057 cases during the same period in 2021. The most common platforms used by e-commerce scammers included Carousell, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, and the most common items offered for sale included electronics, collectibles, trading cards, and graphics cards.