by Dato’ Syed Ahmad Idid
Scammers are on their way to you. Your choice? You either lose your money or you stay intact. But they will come again.
What is a scam, you ask!
“It is a dishonest plan by someone to get money or goods by tricking another”. (MacMillan English Dictionary).
Another take on the same topic: “It is to swindle or cause fraud”. In other words “to cheat or swindle especially in a confidence game” (Webster’s New World Dictionary).
If you look again at the definitions above, many activities even by honest and reputable member clubs and banks may appear as scams. We can talk about this later.
Scams can occur in Google, FB, WhatsApp, phones both landlines and hand/cell phones (The Indonesians suitably call this as telephone “gengam”)
Scam messages in the likeness of emails are sent from genuine companies but then redirect the victims to the fake bank card data entry page. The fake companies may have a similar name as the genuine ones but with a razor- thin difference. Remember the 1MDB Saudi fiasco?
Usually, human weakness is attracted to the offers of discounts. Print out “50% off” and customers flock to it. Once there was an offer of beer and the victim was caught with virus-laden response. He lost US$60,000.00 just outside Malaysia.
To add insult to injury, the perpetrators named their offer as “Mr Mabok” (Not using their original name). And despite that there were persons who were taken in hook, line and sinker.
Look back and you could see some of the company names used by “Joe High” (named changed to hide the players) in the 1MDB campaigns. Such were used to seek out money and to layer out their cash and proceeds. There was again no sensitive honesty to thwart such criminal intent.
I do not need to caution you over cryptocurrency deals. One 50 year old placed RM700 and within a week he was paid RM470 as interest. Believing this was his lucky streak, he put RM80,000. That ended the relationship. He lost it all.
Beware of bogus QR code images online. Three victims paid a total of RM1.4 million. Up to today they still do not understand what went wrong.
But they know their money “ain’t coming back”. More details are available from Cyber Security Malaysia under MCMC.
Another internet security company detected several thousand of phishing emails containing fake QR codes. So QR may be warning you: “Quick.Run”.
Gold has always been an attraction from time immemorial. A female teacher (You thought teachers are clever? Think again!) befriended a foreign man. He told her he was in the gold market which easily gave him 11% interest within a week. She made 78 transactions exceeding RM620,000. All her life savings went poof. So did the foreigner!
No need to remind you of the many young Malaysians duped into going to Myanmar for “high paying jobs”. They were enslaved and told to work with little food and no pay. One managed to be rescued. His passport was taken by the criminal gang. So he was placed under the Myanmar Immigration. Next day he died. The cause “Heart attack”. Suspicious!
Then police detained 44 Malaysians suspected of online smart phone sale packages and foreign exchange (forex). These operated from two condominiums in Jalan Tun Razak, Kuala Lumpur. Seized: mobile phones. Computers. iPads. Routers and Modema. Those detained are aged 20 to 38.
And far from here in South America, 43 Malaysians aged 18 to 36 were rescued from human trafficking gang. They were promised pleasures beyond imagination. On arrival in Lima they were engaged in a scam which originated from Taiwan and China.
The scammers impersonated banks and public officials to gain personal details of victims. From here they got into bank accounts and credit cards.
I ate buffet lunch at a decent café (RM190 per head standard, mind you!). I used my credit card. When I got into a Grab car to go home, I got a call saying that I had used my card to the tune of RM7,030. I switched off my handphone. No notification came from my card issuing bank. I was saved. The caller phone number again appeared sometime later. I passed this to the card issuer. But nothing emerged from there.
Many years ago I was offered a couple of times “millions of US dollars”. Someone from Nigeria would send me an email saying that his uncle died, leaving several millions of the greenback. But I was to settle the bank fees of US$30,000 up front and the millions would be transferred to me. I did not proceed but left the offer dangling.
As for banks, the legendary relationship is that customers place their money for safekeeping. The banks’ duty is to protect the customers’ interest and supply them statements to enlighten as to the status of the funds. So it cannot change that duty of sending hard copy of statements to each customer. It should not charge any fees for that. If the bank wants to automate and offer online information, it may do so but at the expense of the customers. Isn’t that a scam? A service?
Clubs like golf clubs, games clubs, member clubs welcome guests from affiliated clubs. But some make the guests buy coupons in denomination of RM10 or RM50. The guests usually consume food and drinks of, say, RM47. Balance RM3.00. Cannot change into cash. Looks like a scam but may not be felt that way by “proud members”!
The reality is that scammers are cunning and use their brains well. They plan. They foresee the paths of the transactions and the various possibilities. They think of what the authorities will look into and they obscure such activities. It is a mind game. The cleverer ones win.
I leave it to you to decide the winner.
Dato’ Syed Ahmad Idid, a highly experienced legal eagle, is our guest columnist with a keen sense of humour and a sharp eye on things around him.