These scams are everywhere and have sadly even affected my wife's family. We actually didn't know how bad until my mother in law passed. Something to think about is that this is not just about southeast Asian scams. On the cnn site scroll down and you will see dozens of scams all posted by google. Unsold costco merchandise at unreal discounts. The list goes on. Scams have been around forever. My grand mother talked about salesmen coming to the farm when she was a girl selling bobbles and garbage books.
Even when you can pay in cash and have it in hand it can still be a scam, but at least its right in your face. Over the internet never give money, ever. Paying on a site for materials is one thing and its likely that there is not a person on here has not been scammed by ebay or amazon. But those scams are small items. Borrowing 150k is brutal, for any investment, let alone one over the internet.
en.wikipedia.org
