While the country is in jeopardy over who will be the next Prime Minister, real people with real problems continue to affect some quarters of livelihood. Like this case of a female senior citizen being scammed of her life saving from phone scammers.

The 76 year old housewife, received a phone call from a lady who claimed to be a police office from KL Police Contingent and was accused the housewife of being involved in a money laundry syndicate. Soon after rejecting the claim, the line was passed to a male officer reputedly to be from Bukit Aman who requested her to transfer all her money for further investigation.

Fearing to be indicated in such crimes and for her money frozen, the senior citizen made 11 transaction to transfer RM250,000 into 9 separate accounts given by the male counterpart. She only realised of being scammed, after she tried contacting the man again only to find the line no longer active. The victim also did not inform anyone of the phone call, not even to family members which made the investigation into the scam more difficult to trace.

The police are working with the bank to verify the accounts used to transfer the money into and use other means as well to determine the suspects. Phone scam cases has given a rise since early last year, bad actors use this method to create fear in victims by either informing them of their name and IC was used in a hit a run incident, money laundry, or robbery cases. They somehow seem to have personal details like IC, full name and some even bank account details of the people they call. The police has advised people not to panic when receiving such calls and instead call back the authority like the police to check on calls.