TVB actress Joyce Chan, 45, who was once hailed as one of TVB's "Five Beauties” in the ‘90s, recently appeared on the TVB talk show Scoop.

There, she revealed that her 75-year-old mother fell prey to a shady financial planner, who emptied out her mother’s savings by getting her to sign multiple insurance policies.

Joyce is probably best known for her role as Kam Yat in the period sitcom, Virtues of Harmony, which aired from 2001 to 2002.

According to Joyce, her mum first got to know the man, who she addressed as Mr She, in 2018. He worked as a finance manager at a bank near Joyce’s mum’s house, and had managed to gain the trust of Joyce’s mum.

He went over to her house for meals three to four times a week, and sometimes even brought his wife along.

This is one messy saga

Eventually, he approached Joyce’s mum, offering to help her invest her money. However, due to her age, Joyce’s mum needed Joyce to sign the documents on her behalf, as well as open a joint account at the bank together.

Joyce brought the physical documents she signed on to the show, explaining that Mr She did not explain anything about the documents, and merely pointed out where she should sign.

Joyce did not suspect anything at that point in time, as she believed that her mum had done her due diligence. Additionally, mother and daughter kept their finances separate, so she did not pry too much into her mum’s decision.

So. Many. Documents

However, earlier this year, the scam came to light.

Joyce was notified by Mr She that he would be leaving his post at the bank. Thus, she decided to check on the joint account she opened with her mum, only to realise that it was almost fully drained.

The actress went on to share that her mum was so shocked upon discovering the emptied account that she almost fainted.

They realised then that Joyce’s mum was supposed to pay premiums that were almost HK$13mil (S$2.26mil), and that the ‘investments’ that Mr She was purportedly doing for Joyce’s mum did not bring in any money.

Joyce came with receipts

After Joyce and her mum discovered the state of their joint account, Mr She paid them a visit to personally apologise, admitting that he had not done his duty well.

Joyce also provided an audio recording of their confrontation with Mr She, where a relative questions: “Every [policy] is HK$1mil (S$173,845), there’s five insurance policies, and we still need to hand over a total of HK$15mil (S$2.6mil) over three years?”

However, Mr She’s only response was to apologise repeatedly, and promise to help handle the issue.

It looks like there's no conclusion to this saga yet

Later, after Joyce personally approached the insurance company to clarify matters, she found out that Mr She had purchased six policies on behalf of her mother, with premiums that cost a total of HK$30mil (S$5.2mil).

To make matters worse, of the six policies, five had already lapsed. Joyce shared that she could not understand how Mr She was able to buy these policies, that had sky-high premiums, on behalf of her mother, who clearly did not have enough money to pay for everything.

An emotional Joyce then went on to say that after she contacted the insurance company, she realised that Mr She had basically portrayed a “false image” of her to his colleagues and made it seem like Joyce and her mum were "millionaires" who were able to afford the premiums.

She now hopes to get justice for her mum, who had her trust betrayed by Mr She.

Photos: Joyce Chan/Facebook, TVB USA Official/YouTube