SINGAPORE – Rules had to be bent to protect users from scams, said classifieds app Carousell’s chief of staff Tan Su Lin, explaining its unprecedented decision to halt ticket sales ahead of Taylor Swift’s six Singapore concerts in March.

Amid the rush for tickets, users were not catching on to scam indicators, such as a seller’s ratings to show if other buyers had found him to be reliable, added Ms Tan. The scarcity of tickets and demand from overseas also made buyers easy prey for fraudsters, she noted.

Ms Tan said: “The Taylor Swift concerts were a phenomenon in their own right in terms of the kind of fan fervour that we’ve never seen until today. 

“There were many contextual circumstances that led us to take this draconian action to suspend (ticket sales) within the last two weeks. It was the panic window leading up to the concert where people, do or die, have to see their idol in action.”

She was speaking during a panel discussion at Google’s inaugural Asia-Pacific Online Safety Dialogue held at its Singapore office on March 13. Participants, including representatives from Google and Meta, discussed fraud encountered on their platforms and how the industry could collaborate.

She noted that Carousell typically allows users to buy and sell items freely at any price.

“It was a really contentious decision,” Ms Tan said of the decision to suspend concert ticket sales in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

“There are times and circumstances that cause us to deviate from this policy,” she added.

In 2023, Carousell introduced mandatory Singpass verification of a user’s identity before the person could list in the property, ticket and voucher categories in the light of scams targeting such transactions.

The decision came as pressure mounted on online sales platforms to crack down on e-commerce scams, which – together with job scams – are the most widespread type of scams here, with 9,783 cases in 2023, according to the latest police statistics.

Facebook was used in nearly half the scams in 2023, said the police. Carousell, too, is seeing scam activity, with 2,476 cases – roughly a quarter of all e-commerce scams – on its platform.

E-commerce scams typically involve the sale of goods without physical meet-ups. Victims would come across attractive deals but fail to receive the goods after making payment.

Meta, which runs Facebook, was called out in Parliament by Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling on Feb 29 for not doing enough to protect its users from scams.

Meta regional head for trust and safety Daryl Poon said during the March 13 panel discussion that a challenge is the limited visibility available to platforms when fraud occurs. He added: “That makes it quite difficult sometimes for platforms to actively and efficiently detect fraudulent activity.”

Malicious intent can be difficult to assess as the language used can appear to be harmless at first glance, he noted.

“The question is how we, as platforms, can introduce more frictions to make it more difficult (for scammers) to abuse the platforms that were designed for legitimate use,” Mr Poon added.

Scammers posing as buyers

More scammers are posing as buyers to trick sellers into clicking on phishing links under the pretext of receiving payment for items they claimed to be interested in buying, said Ms Tan at the panel session. She added that this is a shift from the usual modes of operation fraudsters took in the past to dupe buyers into paying for bogus listings.

The trend began to surface in late 2022 and has grown over the past year, she told The Straits Times without providing figures.

Victims usually do not alert the platform and instead report the incident to the police, she said, adding that Carousell’s analytics have helped to flag and block “tens of thousands” of fraudulent buyers through algorithms that scout for a combination of suspicious behaviours. Telltale signs include a sudden surge of chats with other users during a short time window, coupled with the age of the account and whether its IP address is located in Singapore, Ms Tan said.

Google announced at the dialogue it has signed on with the Netherlands-based Global Anti-Scam Alliance (Gasa), which works with the authorities and tech companies worldwide to share knowledge and develop ways to combat the menace.

Mr Norman Ng, who oversees trust and safety engagements for Google, said the company will work with Gasa on how it can develop open-source apps to help others fend off scams and expand its network of priority flaggers – partnering firms whose complaints on online safety issues to Google will be prioritised.