Strange email and sounded like a scam, isn’t it? I could have ignored it but I thought what if it’s real? What if a little kind gesture can really help someone through tough times. So I replied.

My reply

And she responded almost immediately.

I know… I did see that Claire could be the short form of Clarissa and Ch stands for Chan.

She insisted that the bracelet reaches her friend on a Tuesday. She even requested that I drop it into her friend’s mailbox. If I couldn’t do that, I HAVE to use Ta-Q-Bin to send it off.

And when I said I don’t have an appropriate bracelet to send to her friend, she asked for a ballpoint pen. Such low value item, surely this can’t be a scam, right?

While I was skeptical, I proceeded to Zalora to purchase a new bracelet for her friend ‘Claire Chan’. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I would rather spend a little bit of money than sending it via Ta-Q-Bin and having to reveal my address to her.

Then came a bunch of emails from her asking if the gift would reach her friend on time. She asked me to send via Zalora express shipping and a bunch of concern whether the bracelet would reach her friend.

I will spare you of those messages.

I told her that it may not reach her friend on time and suggested I send an encouragement email to her friend to lift her spirit and that a gift will arrive a few days later. That seemed to pacify her…..

…for a day or two. Then came a whole bunch of messages on my Facebook page. By now, I knew this couldn’t be right. She may be unstable, bipolar or she simply needed a bracelet for a birthday party or something? Anyway, I’ve already made the purchase on Zalora and I let it go.

A few days later, I even received a thank-you email from ‘Claire Chan’. Yay me!

This afternoon, another mummy blogger posted Clarissa’s message to her – the SAME WORD BY WORD email she sent to me, on our Singapore Mom Bloggers’ group. She posted it because Clarissa has addressed her by another blogger’s name and she found it funny. Otherwise, I never would have found out.

Anyway, that’s a lesson for me to not be so naive next time. I have her phone number and address. If I want to pursue it I could but it just going to be a further waste of my time.

I hope this post would serve as a warning to bloggers in Singapore. Our email addresses and personal lives are very visible and it’s not hard for shady people to misuse it to their advantage.

Peace out!