The first screenshot featured a fake Facebook page claiming to hold a “special giveaway”, in which “100 lucky people” will walk away with $5,000 in cash. It also promised netizens, who shared the page, a “gift card”. 

The second scam occurred on Instagram, where an impersonator “congratulated” one of Jess’ followers for winning $5,000, even going so far as to give instructions on how to claim the grand prize. 

“Congratulations. It’s your lucky day. As you have been chosen as the official winner, you’ve won yourself $5,000 in cash,” the scammer wrote in Chinese. “In order to claim your prize, follow my instructions. If you are interested, reply “READY”. Instantly register and claim your prize. This offer is only valid for one hour. If you do not take action ASAP, I will give this prize to another winner. Thank you.” 

What's up with the urgency, right? 

When contacted, Jesseca told 8days.sg that “this is not the first time” she has been impersonated. 

“There have been many accounts created under my name, but this is the first time that it involves money. As a fan of Desmond Tan was recently scammed of a lot of money, I was worried that my fans would be scammed too,” the actress shared. 

Jesseca also dished out some advice to her fans to make sure that they’re following the correct account. 

“Identify the blue tick on my official accounts and you’re safe. A lot of my fans have received DMs since yesterday. They knew it was fake, but joked about it anyway and asked if I was really going to give out cash. Haha!” she laughed, adding that she hopes no one has been scammed so far. 

Jesseca lets on that she and her hubby, actor Jeremy Chan, would often analyse accounts to see if they were started by fans or impersonators. 

“We can usually tell if it’s a fan account as they’d tag us [in pictures]. If it’s a scam, our fans would usually inform us,” she said. "Honestly, it's very hard to prevent [scammers from impersonating me]. I guess everyone should stay alert and constantly do a check on accounts."

Turns out, Jess isn’t the only celeb who's been a victim of online impersonators. 

Shortly after her post, Love 972 DJ Dennis Chew called out his scammers on IG.

“To all my friends and followers. Please be careful if someone [is] using my name, texting to ask for something. Too many cases recently,” the 46-year-old cautioned, attaching a screenshot of a conversation between him and a concerned follower, who had alerted the star to a fake account named “@Dennis_Chiew23”

Jesseca also left a comment on Dennis’ post, writing: “OMG, you too?”, to which he replied, “Yes, they’re getting too much!”

Dennis told 8days.sg that “a lot of other celebs have been dragged into this” and that it is “definitely not the first time” he has encountered such scams.

“Once, one of my listeners alerted me to a fake Facebook page claiming that I had invested in Bitcoin,” Dennis said. “But because it only happened once or twice, I didn’t think it was serious. The reason I chose to voice out now is because more and more listeners have told me that the impersonator had been communicating with them. So I felt that it was very wrong and decided to warn everyone about it.” 

Dennis also mentioned that he “doesn’t really understand why people are doing this”, but suspects that the people behind these accounts "are probably out to scam fans of their cash". 

“I’m afraid that followers who are more innocent would get tricked by this. This really shouldn’t be allowed,” he said, adding that he was very “bothered” that people are using his pictures without permission to make their fake posts more believable. 

Thankfully, none of Dennis’ fans have fallen victim to the scam. And he prays that no one ever will. 

“Until now, I don’t think anyone believes it. I also hope that nobody gets scammed in the future. I pray lah, hor,” he told us.

Besides Jess and Dennis, another celeb battling online impersonators is Michelle Chong, who called phony profiles out on her socials earlier today (Aug 12). 

“Aiyo, these scammers are getting better and better! They set up a Facebook  page with all my photos and call themselves “Ah Lian” (so it’s harder to get them for impersonating “Michelle Chong”),” the 43-year-old lamented. 

Michelle’s impersonator’s work pretty much like Jesseca’s — they’d congratulate people for winning $5,000 and then ask them for personal information in order to claim their prize. 

“I know there’s been a slew of fake celeb accounts recently so please be very careful and whatever you do, do not give your particulars online to anyone, especially not to an Ah Lian who says she will give you $5000 for nothing. Ah Lians generally don’t do that,” Michelle wrote, thanking her fans who alerted her about the issue. 

She then advised fans to report the scammer if they’ve been contacted. 

“If you have been contacted by this scammer, please report their page to Facebook. I’ve already done so but it seems the people [working for] Facebook either don’t believe I’m the real Ah Lian, or they are still #WorkingFromHome,” she said. 

Photos: Jesseca Liu/Instagram, Dennis Chew/Instagram, Michelle Chong/Instagram