Scams are perenially a headache in Malaysia. And they not only target individual customers. Companies, too, fall prey to scams. The following are some known scam modus operandi that have plagued Malaysian businesses for years, and it would be good for you, as a business owner, to know of them.
Email and Invoice Scam
Email and invoice scam is primarily targeting businesses' payment processes. Scammers target companies' email systems to hijack details of deals between companies. With these stolen details, they recreate email addresses and invoices similar to the targeted companies.
Often, the emails are free emails that anyone can sign up for. For example, if you are dealing with Mr James Bond, who works with Langkasuka Corporation Berhad and has an email address that reads james.bond@langkasuka.com, they will create an email james.bond.langkasuka@gmail.com.
The fake invoices will have the correct information on the deal between the targeted companies but with different payment instructions, often to pay companies with unrelated names. So, instead of paying to Langkasuka's account at Tiger Bank, they will ask you to pay to the Suka-Suka Sdn Bhd bank account maintained at Sotong Bank. When the buyer asks for clarification on the account name, they often tell a fictitious story. Their favourite stories are about their original bank had blocked the account due to bounced cheque, or the tax authorities are currently auditing them, and they want to hide the transactions from the tax authorities.
Sometimes, the scammers even redirect the payment to other countries, especially countries with lax identification documents. In these cases, these scammers even sought to open new companies using the name of companies to hide the fact of the scam. For example, they will tell you to pay to Langkhasuka bank account in Sawadeekap Bank in Thailand.
The unsuspecting company would pay into the account controlled by the scammers. Usually, the victims only realise when the business enquires about payment.
Business owners can avoid this type of scam by strengthening their cyber-security to prevent scammers from being able to read their emails. They can also minimise the risk of falling victim to this scam by calling their suppliers via telephone to confirm the payment details transaction. They should do a second verification for transactions with unusual payment redirection if the scammers are in cahoots with syndicates that can redirect phone calls.
Buyer Scam
This type of scam involves scammers who pose as genuine buyers of goods. Usually, they target precious goods as these are easier to dispose of.
They will patronise the companies selling the goods that they are targeting. Once knowing the price of the goods, they will proceed with the second part of the scam. There are two known variations to this second part of the scam.
In the first type of this scam, the scammers will use stolen banking information of another targeted company, such as the banks that these businesses maintained their accounts, bank account numbers, signatures of the authorisers, and the names of key personnel. They will go to the bank, fill up a transaction form with the correct signatories, and attach a forged invoice to make the transaction look genuine.
The second variation of this scam is the scammer would create an advertisement selling the same type of goods as the company. The scammer will sell the goods at the same price. They pretend to be the seller, and the unsuspecting buyers would order via the scammers. The scammer will instruct the buyer to pay into the actual seller's account. The scammer would then pretend to buy from the actual seller, requesting the seller to deliver the goods to the scammers. Often, the scammers would get a third party to collect the goods on their behalf.
This type of scam is much more difficult to stamp out, as it requires banks to be more vigilant. This type of scam also affected many online sellers at one time. But the advent of online selling platforms such as Lazada and Shopee has minimised this risk.
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