IPOH: A 55-year-old woman from Bercham here lost over RM470,000 after falling victim to a phone scam.

Perak police chief Comm Datuk Seri Mohd Yusri Hassan Basri said the victim was fooled by individuals claiming to be insurance agents, police officers and a lawyer.

She lodged a police report Monday (Sept 11).

He said on Jan 25, the victim received a call from an unknown individual claiming to be an officer from an insurance company, and asked the victim if she had received her claims amounting to RM78,000.

Comm Mohd Yusri said the victim then received another call on Jan 31, from another individual claiming to be a police officer from the Ampang police district headquarters, and told the victim to lodge a report on the insurance claims monies that did not exist.

“During the telephone conversation, the call was then transferred to a third suspect, claiming to be a lawyer who informed the victim that she was involved in a money laundering case.

“On Feb 3, the victim received calls from two unknown suspects claiming once again to be police officers who told her how to transfer the money for safekeeping.

“The victim withdrew her funds from Amanah Saham and Tabung Haji amounting to about RM458,000 to be transferred to the suspect’s bank account,” he said in a statement on Tuesday (Sept 12).

Comm Mohd Yusri said besides that, the victim had also carried out five transactions amounting to RM35,000 into three accounts belonging to different individuals, after receiving instructions from the sixth suspect, supposedly to settle the compounds on the criminal offence.

He said on Aug 25, the victim only realised that she had been cheated after receiving notification from the bank on the 17 transactions amounting to RM 438,225 from her account to several unknown bank accounts from Feb 9 until March 28.

He said the victim suffered losses amounting to RM473,225 in total.

“Despite the police taking several initiatives to prevent phone scams, including organising prevention talks, providing information via the media and social media, issuing warnings, and establishing a special 997 phone line, such scams are still happening to this day.

“This shows that the knowledge, alertness, and awareness of such scams among the community is still very low,” he said.

Comm Mohd Yusri said people can call the national scam response centre hotline at 997 if they realised that they have been scammed via phone or cyber, and if they have conducted transactions on the same day to unknown accounts.

He said for any inquiries on such scams, people can call 013-2111222 (WhatsApp only) from 8am to 8pm).

For more information on the current fraud trends, the public can visit www.Facebook.com/jsjkpdrm or www.facebook.com/cybercrimealertrmp.

Besides that, the public can also check bank accounts, and mobile numbers that are possibly involved in fraud cases via https://semakmule.rmp.gov.my

Source:
courtesy of THE STAR

by MANJIT KAUR

If you have any stories or news that you would like to share with the global online community, please feel free to share it with us by contacting us directly at [email protected]