LYDIA, 14, was just chatting with a 28-year-old stranger who saw her picture on networking website Friendster and told her she was 'hot'. Within 20 minutes, he offered her $500 for sex.
Shocked at the offer, she cut off the conversation and went offline.
Her experience was one of numerous stories that came from 50 teenagers between 11 and 19 who spoke to The Straits Times this month.
The Straits Times polled these teenagers to find out how many of them had been sexually propositioned online.
Eighteen of them - boys and girls - said they had encountered these predators. Ten of them agreed to a meeting, and four, aged between 17 and 18, ended up having sex with the strangers they met online.
The predators were usually men who told the teens that they were in their late 20s to 30s.
Many of the teens polled started using the Internet at a very young age, some as young as seven. By their 10th birthday, all 50 were familiar with the Internet.
Their experiences were similar to those of teens in Britain, where a London School of Economics study in October showed that two in three young people were targeted by Internet sex predators.
Citing the study in its recent report on the impact of the Internet, the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society (Aims), suggested setting up a fund and an agency to protect minors exposed to online predators.
Last year, Singapore made sexual grooming of teens below 16 a criminal offence. Those who are 21 years old and older can be jailed for up to three years or fined - or both - if they contact a teen on at least two occasions to build a relationship with the aim of having sex.
The Aims report found that girls aged 13 to 17 were most at risk.
Contrary to popular belief, the teens in this poll who had sex with strangers they met online were from intact families and studied in top schools. Their parents did not know about their sexual activities.
Melanie, 17, agreed to meet a 30- year-old man after chatting with him on Friendster a few times.
He took her back to his place when they met the second time, and they had sex in his bedroom.
'He was driving a nice Subaru, which I found so attractive. Besides, I had nothing to do,' said the junior college student, an only child.
A 15-year-old boy, Arjuna, responded to strangers in a local chatroom who wanted to have sex without using a condom. He met a 29-year-old man and subsequently other men.
But there were teens who refused to be drawn into such risky behaviour.
Cheryl Yeo, 17, said that she was not being conservative, 'but it's a kind of respect for myself'.
Teens who freely posted pictures of themselves on social networking profiles seemed particularly vulnerable.
Psychologist Vanessa von Auer said it allowed predators to 'take their pick', so to speak.
Online games with a 'virtual reality effect' also helped sexual predators get closer to their victims.
'The game character the predator takes on feels even more real to the victim than simple text messages. Having a mutual interest - gaming - also makes it easier,' she said.
According to her, young victims, or even the predators themselves, tend to be lonely or are unable to fit in at school. The victims may also be sexually naive.
Consultant psychologist Kit Ng sees one or two new victims of Internet predators every month.
'The worrying part is that predators can take on any guise, which youth may fall for,' he said.
He had a patient who was sexually groomed by a man in a chatroom, who pretended to want to teach her sex education. Fortunately, she confided in her parents, who put a stop to it.
Additional reporting by Sirin Thongudomporn
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