A Taipei man nearly lost his savings to a fake online girlfriend on Telegram, but bank staff and police stopped the transfer in time — good news for him, a warning for everyone else.

• A scam ring posed as a woman on Telegram, sending daily affectionate messages until the man trusted her completely.
• He had already been talked into transferring NT$180,000, supposedly for a toy shipment to the US.
• The scammers then dangled a paid sexual encounter and told him to wire NT$480,000 at a bank counter.
• A teller noticed the receiving account was already flagged for suspicious money flows and called police, who talked him out of it.
• Neihu district police say they and local banks have blocked more than NT$50 million in scam payments so far this year.

Outlook: Police expect romance-plus-sex-trade scams to keep spreading on messaging apps, and are urging people never to send money on a stranger's instructions.