Cops: Beware of scammers asking for your TAC for online transactions

KUALA LUMPUR: Members of the public are advised to be careful of scammers stealing their money through their own Transaction Authorisation Code (TAC).

Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) acting director Deputy Comm Datuk Saiful Azly Kamaruddin said the scammers would find ways to steal the banking details of their victims.

"However, when the scammers attempt to perform a transaction, the TAC code will still be sent to the victim's mobile phone.

"The scammers will then call the victim, claiming that the TAC code was sent wrongly and ask the victims to read out the code to them," he told a press conference at CCID headquarters on Friday.

While it would be foolish to believe that anyone would fall for such a scam, DCP Saiful Azly said these cases have been rising since 2017.

"In 2017, 202 cases were reported with RM11.6mil in losses, while last year, we received 392 cases with RM14.9mil in losses.

"It is now only January, and we have recorded 33 cases involving RM441,000 of losses," he said.

On another matter, DCP Saiful Azly said the department would be cooperating more with their foreign counterparts in busting commercial crimes cases, especially cybercrimes.

Recently, the CCID along with their counterparts in Hong Kong and Singapore busted a love scam syndicate, he added.

"We detained 19 people in Malaysia, while Hong Kong authorities detained 28 suspects. Singaporean authorities arrested two suspects," he said.

The arrests resulted in the CCID solving 38 love scam cases, while for authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore, a total of 100 cases and eight cases were solved respectively, he added.