Phone scam menace still rampant

ANOTHER individual in Kepala Batas has fallen victim to a scam and lost RM177,500.

A housewife who befriended a man from Poland was apparently told that she had been sent gifts which were held up at the courier company due to tax and insurance charges.

The woman was told to make the necessary transactions for these charges to claim the gifts. She made 17 transactions for a whopping RM177,500 and later discovered that it was a scam.

The African scam syndicate involved in this case generally uses the “love ploy” to lure victims.

The Macau scam, on the other hand, uses the “fear factor” to trap victims and get them to transfer their bank savings. There have been more than a dozen Macau scam cases this year.

Kepala Batas in Kedah has the dubious distinction of having the highest record of losses amounting to a staggering few hundred thousands of ringgit. The entire savings of victims, most of whom had recently retired, were wiped clean by conmen.

It is strange that such syndicates are able to trace victims based on their fat bank accounts.

The modus operandi of such scamsters has always been the same yet even professionals seem to be falling prey to them.

Are the scammers using “spells” to hypnotise victims through phone calls to disclose their bank details and to make huge monetary transactions to unknown accounts?

Many of my friends who have had encounters with these fraudsters, wisely cut off the calls and do not entertain them.

Do not engage with them. The moment they identify themselves as a court or police officer, just hang up the phone.

Weeding out the Macau scam artists needs to be given high priority by banks and the police. Banks need to be “busy bodies” and call targeted victims and make enquiries when huge transactions are made online.

The banks should cap the amount of withdrawals online for the benefit of depositors. The police, on the other hand, should do everything possible to wipe out phone scam syndicates.

Samuel Yesuiah
Seremban