JEMPOL: It was not a case of once bitten twice shy for this businesswoman.
Having lost over RM80,000 to conmen in a non-existent loan scam and discovering she had been cheated, she went on to hand over another RM226,000 to the same crooks a month later.
The 52-year-old woman from Taman Acbe, Bahau, here, had run into financial difficulties in June last year and responded to an advertisement in Facebook that offered loans.
After contacting the advertiser who would later turn out to be a scammer, she sought a loan of RM250,000.
After sharing her personal particulars with the scammer, he instructed her to pay a processing fee.
From a few thousand ringgit initially, the scammer kept pressing for more payments until the sum of the processing fee the victim had transferred to the crook ballooned to over RM80,000.
When she did not receive the loan sum she had sought and the scammer demanded for more payment, the woman sensed she had been cheated and lodged a police report.
Having been advised by police that she was a victim of a scam syndicate, the woman did not learn her lesson.
Just weeks after she made the police report, the scammer and an accomplice contacted her again and “offered to return” the processing fee she had paid them.
However, she was required to make further payments for the “cancellation” of the loan she had applied for.
Jempol police chief Supt Hoo Chang Hook (pix) said today that the same pattern of demands for payments were made by the scammers and the woman ended up transferring another RM226,000 for the return of her initial payment of RM80,000 between August last year and this month.
“All in all, she ended up losing over RM300,000 in over 50 transactions. She had progressively transferred the cash to 23 mule bank accounts. In the last demand, the scammers asked for another RM4,500 but she turned them down and lodged another police report recently. Our investigations revealed that the mule accounts were used in scams since August last year.”
Exasperated by the recurrence of such cases, Hoo said it is puzzling how victims remain ignorant of such scams even after it had been widely reported in the media.
“How could they believe the word of someone they had never met and believe they can obtain a loan without supporting documents? Why weren’t their suspicions aroused when they were asked to pay a processing fee amounting to way above the loan sum they had requested? Perhaps they do not read the news. We hope those who are aware of such scams share and educate those who are not in the know and bring some awareness to them,“ he said.