Latest / 987 The Shock Circuit / INTERVIEW: STEVEN CHIA

Transcript

INTERVIEW: STEVEN CHIA · 987 The Shock Circuit

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Who is one of the most well-loved people on screen
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: here in Singapore and our bestie, Steve Chia from CNN's
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Talking
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Point. Welcome. Good to be back. He has put his time,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: his mind, his body on the line for Talking Point,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: on his image.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Look, I mean, if we ever had anything we needed
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to clarify, Steve is always here to do that, just
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: like what our people are saying on TikTok Live right now.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: We love Steve Chia, the legendary Steve.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Steve Chua is goat.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and by the way, so earlier I was just
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: kind of trolling Steve a little bit. I said, Hey,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: what happened? How did you make the CEO of DBS
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: so angry and she stormed off set? And if you're
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: wondering what I'm referring to is this fake article that's
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: been circulating on social media. It's been now debunked. And
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: if you're on TikTok, you can see what the, what
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the article looks like, where it's, uh, what seems to
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: be an AI generated image of Steve, which, which you
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: can tell.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Because we know him so well, but I must say, uh,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Miss Tan Susan looks scarily alike, so
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: fiercely. I mean,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: that's the whole premise of the story. I had done
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: an interview with her and I said, oh, you know,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: banks are basically taking our money and not giving us
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: very good returns, and she supposedly got upset, punched me
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: in the face, got a bloody nose, you know.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: And of course, after all that, I'm going back because
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I know how we can make money. Let me show you.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Click on this link and I will show you all
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: the ways you can make money. Exactly. And that's the
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: story of what it was all about.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: That's the problem I think for a lot of people
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: who are scrolling all the time, you scroll really quickly
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and sometimes you just assume everything is real, especially if
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: they see your likeness, right?
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: What is the percentage you feel of people who might
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: see a celebrity they recognize and trust what they're saying?
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Associate certain things and you do trust certain people more
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: than others, right? So generally I think the stuff I've done,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, I, I, you know, we try very hard
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: to make sure everything we do, if I say I'm
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: doing it, I'm doing it because the moment I start
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: lying about it and you find out, you stop believing
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: what I say, right? Yeah, so in that sense, that
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: could be why they use my face, you know, um.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: And people, I mean, people were asking me. I had
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: friends calling me and saying, Hey, I've seen this. Is
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: it real? Did it really happen? You see, so people
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: don't look beyond the fact that even though the, the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: bloody nose picture had me in an entirely different outfit,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: which did come to the interview in a different outfit,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: you know, and so a lot of things, yeah, a
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: lot of things didn't match. But because we're all hooked
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: on the, the, what, you know, the clickbait in that sense,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: and the idea that, I mean, the basic premises we're
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: all quite
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Greedy and therefore easily tempted by an easy way to
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: make money, but yeah. So I interviewed a guy who
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: works in the financial services sector and he himself had
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: clicked on an ad. Uh, he thought, OK, I know
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: what I'm doing. He, he had gone, looked at the investment,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: been approached by them. He had done his due diligence,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, and he still got scared.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Of $180,000. Yeah. You know why? So the scammers are
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: really smart. When they work with you, they do not
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: everything is illegitimate, not everything is fake. They'll say this
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: company ABC, uh, I expect it to go up, you know,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: by 2% or whatever, uh, then they send you to
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: a platform, a real platform, a real stock market indices,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: you know, and then they'll say we are supported by
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: this company.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: That is a real company that exists. So when you
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: do your research, it all looks legit. But somewhere along
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: the way, they lead you astray. What was that like?
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Did you or was it like a cordial and I
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: mean this scam, we contacted the platforms right away. They
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: took it down.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: But unbeknown to me, it popped up on another website.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So basically they just use a different website address, right?
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So I met with someone and he says, let's try it.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: So we clicked on it. This is all being recorded.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Within like 6-7 minutes, I got a phone call from
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: the scammer himself. Hello, Mr. Chia, I see you are
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: interested in investing. Yeah well-spoken said, Oh, I'm calling you from.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: You know, we are a big company and we are
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: able to help you and, and then I'll be like, oh,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: tell me a bit more. He was very professional, very fluent.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Was the actual person or like an AI. I'm pretty
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: sure it was a real person.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: The
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: scary part is what if like AI has become so
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: advanced that you can't even differentiate between AI and a
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: person.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Thing with someone online, there's a very high chance that
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: it could be AI generated with a real person because
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I was asking questions and he was so good. He
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, I was like, how do I start investing?
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: He's like, minimum is $250 and he explained how it
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: all worked. And then at the end of the conversation,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I was like, OK, I'm interested. I would like to
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: put in, uh, $2000. He's like,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Sir, I think you should only start with $250 1st.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: That's very smart, you know,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: and that's what they do. The first few times you
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: will get your money back and you will make money
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: and then you start putting more in. I've made $100. 0,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: that was easy. $30,000.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: OK, now you get nothing back. I didn't, you know,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: became friends and
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: And he was saying how I got my business, I
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: need to renovate, but I can't afford it. And some, uh,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: just like two months into the relationship, so to speak,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: and the person says, oh, maybe you can think about investing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: And then he's like, oh, actually, I know, I know
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: a way and I know some people. And he introduced
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: him to that platform and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: So based on your research and your investigative journalism, like, um,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you know, you said you spoke to this one dude
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: on the phone or something in the conversation, right? But
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: because it's like a long game, is it like multiple people,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: like
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: a
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: group of 20 just taking over the conversation, but they're
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: following a script?
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: For the next 2 weeks, they called every day. They
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: called back. We didn't pick up the calls, but we
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: saw the missed calls. Every day they were calling, sometimes
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: twice a day because they want to follow up. The
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: fact that they can say, oh, just put in a
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: little bit first and.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Do you think the scammers are actually studying the sentiments.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: There is a whole manual for scammers. It's like. I mean, we,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: we've all heard about this, you know, in other countries
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: where they've invaded scam compounds and seized.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It's like a multinational company. They run it in ways
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: that you cannot imagine like Media Corp. I mean, they
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: have operations, they have HR, they have everything, you know,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: and we also discovered from speaking to the police that
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of these things are located geographically in different countries.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Why do you do that?
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Because then it's hard to really catch them and different jurisdiction.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Country A cannot do anything in Country B and some countries,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: different regulations, different rules, you know, you might get away
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: with some stuff there. It is, it's more than a syndicate.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: It's a billion, multi-billion.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Syndicate.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: So based off what you learned about all these scams
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and scams that surprised you
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: the most?
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Uh, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, I've got all these people, you know,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: this is my crowd, yeah, making money with them, but, um,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: the premise is if it's too good to be true,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: it really is too good to be true. You can't,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: you can't make a fast buck. Nothing can ever promise
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: you a fast buck, I think.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: So the the story doesn't change, but it's so easy
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: to write the story because online it's just words, right,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: and pictures easily manipulated and now we've seen with the
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: deep fake videos as well. So this, this episode on cryptocurrency? Ah,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: we do, because very often they're now asking you to
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: pay in cryptocurrency. And the best part is, yes, they
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: say pay to this platform. It's a real crypto wallet
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: at first.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Along the way, they'll say, now transfer it to this
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: other wallet.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really risky. Like honestly, even some of the dudes
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: who are in finance, for example, when crypto just came about,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: they themselves also people who think that they are savvy
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: with finance, they also got scammed and they got their
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: digital wallets like broken into, um, coins stolen and all that.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Can
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I, can I share with you a convoy with somebody
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: who works for a government agency, OK.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: And this person works for one of the agencies who
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: are actually tied in with this whole anti-scam thing, right?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Her aunt got scammed of $30,000 and till this day,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: the aunt is blaming the family, saying, Sila, you all
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: say I got scammed the scammer don't want to
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: return
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: me
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: my
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: money.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Oh my
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: gosh, the,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: the bank teller, she calls it, and it's scary. So
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: how can people here in Singapore fight this? I mean,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: it really is a psychological game. What they're doing isn't
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: really mind blowing, you know, the concept.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: But yeah, just be more aware and really if it
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: offers you an easy opportunity to make money, just ask yourself,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: can it really be that way and do a bit
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: more research because very often if you just double-check, put
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: up the website address, somebody will have encountered it and
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: flagged it, you know. I mean, yeah, cryptocurrency is a
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: hard one. I mean that day I bought myself something
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: called a Dad coin.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Of course
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: you did. It's worthless but full of jokes, you know.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Oh
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: no. Scammers are obviously not very nice to their victims,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: but they are nice.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: They act nice. But the intention is bad.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you don't know that it's too late. It's
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: it's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So in turn, you are nice to them too. That's
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the thing. How interesting. OK.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Can I ask you a
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: fun
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: one.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Between the two of us, Steve, who's more scammable? Who
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: do you think is more scammable? I know the answer
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: he's looking for.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, don't
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: give it to him.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Don't
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: baiting,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: you could say the example he gave the financial advisor
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: who said he knew what he was doing but he
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: lost 180,000
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: dollars.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: That could have been me.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: I would say equally scammable
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: in different ways.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say that, yeah. OK, then what do
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: you think Joakim will fall for and what will I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: fall for?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Just based on what you know of us personality-wise I
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: don't know, it could be a scam.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: OK, this one, this one I can happily say no lah.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: I don't think love scam, but maybe like you tell
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: me football scam. Oh yeah, that's true. Cheap tickets to
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Old Trafford. I'll, I'll get it, man. I'll try. And
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: then for, for our darling, please now that she's married,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: you know,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: assessment, yeah,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: um.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: He's really, he's really assessing,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: another one of those, maybe like, uh, some products endorse something,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: endorsement scam endorsements,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: OK, I was gonna say package
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: scam scam as in like shopping.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: No, no, like, you know, manicures or like massage or something,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: if you buy like 5, you know,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: we're trying to figure out whether it's a scam or not.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: You know, this is another story someone pitched to us
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: where these beauty salons, they open up, they sell packages,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: then they close down, they declare bankruptcy, and they open
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: up in the same location
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: with a different name. I think you should do it
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: if
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: you
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: are doing an episode like that,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I can be your bit
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: and you have a camera, I volunteer Sonia as the
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: as the unsuspecting victim to know all about the packages.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: OK. But before we, we wrap it up, I think,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: you know, the consensus that a lot of people have is,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: if it's too good to be true, it probably is
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: too good, you know, there's no free meal in this world,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: as people are saying, can't get rich overnight. Anything else
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that we need to take note of, like, and the
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: episode drops tonight, so I know you don't want to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: give too much away, but anything else you want to
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: share?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I, I think it's
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: It's uh, it might help to, to share with someone
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: and say, hey, I'm doing this, and you know, an
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: outside perspective sometimes will help because you're kind of caught
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: in the moment, especially when they return money the first
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: few times you're like, Oh, I've made some money, you know, uh,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: and of course you can always just check in because
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: police are doing a lot of things. They have a
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: whole department dedicated to this scam shield on our phones helps,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: but it obviously doesn't block everything.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: You know, um, I unfortunately don't really have a foolproof solution.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: It's really just about thinking and asking yourself, taking a moment,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: especially a pause, just to say, let me think about it.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Could this really be, can I really make $100 in
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: just 30 minutes, right?
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: If you could, and if it really worked, everybody will
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: be doing it and there'll be a whole bunch of
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: rich people around us. I mean vigilant. So in fact,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: if you look at my Instagram, got to me on
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Instagram and say, hey, I need your help. My aunt
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: is being scammed
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Someone who looks like you, can you please record a
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: video of yourself telling her that it's all fake? So
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: immediately I was like, I'm not gonna send you a
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: video for sure, you know, but I did communicate with
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: this person, seemed really genuine, and they sent me a
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: picture of myself on with my, uh, my face on
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: an IC, you know. So it was just not my name,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: it was Steven Chen, but basically, yeah.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to pull it out now, but basically, yeah,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: they're using that. So, so I, I still don't know
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: till today whether that was true or not. I did
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: report it to the police, you know, they did sort
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: of try to track it down, but they did tell
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: me that, um, that this number is this IC number
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: has been used before, has been flagged. So I think
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the first, the first thing everyone should do is just
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: the moment you get something, just report it because the
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: police also can benefit.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: from the more people flag it, the more they have
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: in their database to know and they can check on it.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: That's great. OK,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: good. Wow, I mean, I think out of all the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: celebrities that we know, you're probably the one with, uh,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you know, most face out there right now most trustworthy.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: They won't, I don't know. I don't think we look
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: very trustworthy, do we? For example,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: You in some high fashion scam. They, they put me
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: in some sports scam or running scam or running supplements,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean. You never know. Somebody watching
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: us right now on TikTok Li could be working for
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: a scam syndicate. Think about this. That's OK. It's OK.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: I have a way to solve all of this. I mean,
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: there are a lot of scams out there, and I
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: can help you just for 79.95.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And 2 minutes of your time.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Steve, for joining us. Always a joy.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I'm lowkey a little disappointed there was not another dad
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: joke to wrap this up.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Oh, OK, I mean there was one time a scammer
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: to sell me some invisible, but I just can't see
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: myself buying that.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I walked right into that one, Joe. You asked for it,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I asked for it. Ask and it shall be delivered
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: traffic
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: news.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Anyway, please catch Talking Points.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: It's 9:30 p.m. on Channel 5 and of course onWatch
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: and later on on YouTube.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So give Steve follow as well, not Steve Chen, Steve, Steve.