Posting personal photos on blog has consequences too...

BEAUTY QUEEN WAS UNWITTING PAWN IN ONLINE SCAM

Summarised version (by kermit for easy reading): Singpore beauty queen cum part time model owns a blog, post photos on blog. One day a man went up to her and asked if she was his online friend. And to her greatest horrors!!!!!!!! Found out that someone has been using her photos pretending to be her & cheating money out of men.

Full version (as reported on Newpaper on 14th Aug 2006): As a beauty queen and part-time model, she's used to having her photos circulated widely. Like many people, she has also posted personal photos on her blog. But Miss Amanda Low, 26, had no idea that someone would use her pictures to seduce men in an online scam.

These pictures were sent by "Kalene" to Mr Michael Poh, supposedly of herself. They are really of Miss Amanda Low.

Once the men become smitten with the attractive girl in the pictures, the impostor would 'sweet-talk' them into giving her money. She would tell a sob story and ask for a loan, with the money to be transferred to her bank account. When the men ask to meet her, she would make excuses not to do so. If they insisted, she would then stop all contact, leaving them with no way of recovering their money.
Miss Low, who was Miss Chinese World in the Miss Singapore-Chinatown 2005 pageant, believes that at least five men have fallen victim to the cyber cheat.
She also won the Miss Friendship title in the Miss Asia-Pacific 2006 pageant.
It was purely by chance that she found out what her photos were being used for.
One man who almost got conned by the impostor had spotted Miss Low at an exhibition in Singapore Expo last month. Miss Low, who has been modelling part-time for seven years, told The New Paper on Sunday: 'I was giving out brochures when I noticed a man staring at me strangely. 'He came up to me after 15 minutes and asked if I knew him.'
She was taken aback by Mr Michael Poh's direct manner. Mr Poh, 26, who runs a food stall in Toa Payoh, told her that she looked exactly like the pictures of a woman he knew as 'Kalene'.

WANTED CASH

He said 'Kalene', whom he had met on the Internet, had tried to borrow $3,000 from him.
Miss Low said: 'I was shocked that my photographs were being used to cheat men. I would not have found out if not for the chance meeting with Michael.'
She was in for another shock.
After she and Mr Poh exchanged more details about 'Kalene', Miss Low found out that she was the same woman who had impersonated her in 2001.
The two women were friends then.
'Kalene' had sent out Miss Low's photos in Internet chatrooms, claiming to be the woman in the pictures.
Miss Low recalled: 'I found out about it when my friend happened to get the photos.
'I also learnt that her online 'boyfriend' would transfer money to her, thinking she was me.'
When confronted, 'Kalene' apologised profusely.

FELT INFERIOR
Miss Low said: 'She told me she did it because she felt inferior to me. I let her off with a warning after she promised never to do it again.' Twice bitten, Miss Low decided to make a police report this time as she is worried that 'Kalene' might have conned other men.
She showed us a copy of the report dated 6 Aug.
Through her own investigations, Miss Low said 'Kalene' could have cheated at least five men.
She said: 'If she's been cheating men like this since 2001, who knows how many more victims are out there? 'What if one of her victims sees me on the streets and beats me up because he thinks I ran away with his money?'
Now, whenever she stays out late, she always makes sure she is not alone.
'I hope the men who have been conned can contact me so I can press charges against her. Now it's just my and Michael's words against her,' said Miss Low. The police have confirmed that they are investigating the case. Miss Low gave us 'Kalene's' contact number and real name.
We called the number a few times over three days.
Each time, a woman answered to the name given by Miss Low, but when asked about this case, she said she was too busy to talk.

BLOG INTEREST
Mr Poh related how he got to know 'Kalene' in January last year when he chanced upon her blog. He has a blog too.
He said: 'It's my hobby to browse through blogs. This blog was different because there were photos of her manicured and pedicured nails, handbag, laptop - everything but a photo of her face.
'This made me even more curious to see what she looks like. So I e-mailed her and asked for her MSN Messenger address.' He has e-mailed female strangers before in the hope of befriending them and has dated one of them. Mr Poh, who did not have a girlfriend then, was elated when 'Kalene' replied soon after. They started chatting every day on MSN.
'We talked about all sorts of things like our hobbies. After a week, I asked for her photo and phone number.' She then e-mailed three photographs to Mr Poh. They showed an attractive woman striking different poses.
Mr Poh was immediately attracted to the woman in the pictures.
'She was so pretty. And from the way she wrote in her blog, I could tell she had brains too,' he said. 'I was interested in her and wanted to ask her out.'
He got her number and they chatted over the phone every day.
'You could say we had a relationship going. We would say quite mushy things to each other,' he said. 'Kalene' said she was an accounts assistant.
Soon after they met online, she told Mr Poh that she was having problems at work.
He said: 'She wanted to quit and asked for my opinion. I told her if she doesn't like the job, she should quit.'
But 'Kalene' claimed she had to pay two months' salary totalling $5,000 if she quit without giving notice.
Mr Poh said: 'She told me she had $2,000 in savings and asked to borrow $3,000 from me.
'I agreed to lend it to her, but told her she would have to meet me.'
But 'Kalene' claimed she was not free and asked him to transfer the money to her bank account.
That was when Mr Poh began to smell a rat.
He said: 'She just refused to meet me and gave all kinds of excuses.
'Once, I tried to meet her after her dance practice, but she didn't turn up. Her handphone was off.'
After 'Kalene' stood him up, she did not contact him for a few months.
'Maybe she was mad at me for not lending her the money. I no longer saw her on MSN, probably because she blocked me,' he said.
Mr Poh started going out with another girl, but the relationship ended after a few months.
Feeling depressed, he wrote about the break-up in his blog.
Around that time, 'Kalene' got in touch with him again.
He said: 'I was feeling down. We started talking again. I don't know if she contacted me again because she wanted money from me.'
He admitted he was still interested in 'Kalene'. But although he wanted to date her, he was confused.
A friend had told him she saw her pictures on someone else's blog on Friendster, a social networking website.
When Mr Poh asked 'Kalene' about it, she brushed it off, saying the blogger was probably using her pictures to pretend to be her.
'I didn't know who to believe,' he said.
That is, until he saw Miss Low at Singapore Expo.

SAME GIRL
'I stared at her for 15 minutes to make sure she was the same girl in the pictures,' he said. 'I then called Kalene's handphone.
'She answered and said she was at home sleeping. It was then that I knew she had used the photos to trick me.'
This experience has taught him a lesson he will always remember.
'Never ever believe what you read and see on the Internet.'