There has been a lot of stories lately about people being scammed whether it’s an email scam or love scams or phone scams. Scammers are everywhere and they’re smart to target those they believe will fall for their lies but some took extra effort in convincing their victims that they are the real deal when they’re not.
Just earlier last month, there were few cases where one elderly woman lost RM 257,172 to a Facebook love scam and another lost RM1.84mil to a strange call that claimed her money was being used for something illegal. Victims go as young as 14 years old as a teenage boy from Pahang lost RM295,950 through an online “love scam”.
So what is being done to stop these scammers? New Straits Times reported that the government wants to work closely with Bank Negara Malaysia and local telecommunication companies in an effort to minimise the number of online scams and solve cases which are growing at a worrying rate in the country.
According to Deputy Home Affairs Minister I Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Mohamed Said, identifying and tracing the owner of the bank accounts and mobile phone number holders were some of the challenges faced by police in the course of investigations. We can only imagine.
“Identifying the caller is difficult as scammers would use phone numbers registered in Malaysia or abroad and they would use Voice Over Internet Protocol. We seek the cooperation from telecommunication companies for them to furnish us with the information of the mobile phone number holders speedily.
“We view five frauds in the country namely Macau Scam, Love Scam, African Scam, loan scam and SMS scam as serious as it is not only increasing but it will affect our economy,” he said.
He added that the police are increasing enforcement efforts in arresting those behind the scams and hauling them to court.
Efforts to educate the public on such scams were also being held via exhibitions, dialogues, briefings to school and university students, non-governmental organisations as well as various associations.
The police, he added, had also created a Facebook account named Cyber Crime Alert Royal Malaysia Police to disseminate information on the threat of online scams.
