Large amounts cleared out in minutes

PETALING JAYA: It took scammers only 20 minutes to clear out RM70,000 from housewife K. Priya’s bank account.

Now, the 52–year-old is pleading for the government to put in place a mechanism to compensate victims and for banking authorities to activate a kill switch for suspicious activities.

Priya’s ordeal started a few months ago when she was looking for pet groomers on social media and found one that offered the service at a cheap price.

As there was no contact number given, Priya messaged the business via Facebook Messenger and was told that their agent would contact her via WhatsApp.

“A few days later, I got a message from them and there was a link.

“I clicked on the link which was to a pet grooming site and the reviews were so great and I was quite impressed and asked how to make the booking.

“They said I had to pay a RM15 deposit through a link and book the date and make the payment there,” said Priya.

As she was getting error messages when trying to do so, she contacted the business again and they guided her on the process.

“I followed the steps and was brought to a website that looked similar to Maybank where I needed to type in my username and password,” said Priya.

She, however, found it odd that when she tried to log in, it said that her password was wrong. Priya said she made a total of three attempts to log in but failed.

The next morning, which was on a Sunday, Priya got a call from the Maybank cybersecurity department asking her if she was making any transactions as a large amount of money was being transferred out of her account.

Priya said she got suspicious as she never received any transaction authorisation code (TAC) message or notification from her banking app alerting her of the transfers.

She then called up the Maybank customer service hotline, which confirmed that her money had been transferred out.

Shocked, Priya instructed them to freeze her account.

“However, there was nothing else that could be done. I had no choice but to wait until Monday morning to go to the bank,” she said, adding that she immediately filed a police report on the incident.

Priya said it was only when she went to the bank the next day that she discovered that she had lost RM70,000, all within 20 minutes. She said the scammers had even changed her online transfer limit, which she had set to RM5,000.

“But luckily, the scammers didn’t touch my children’s accounts, which are linked to mine as they are minors,” she said.

Priya said the scammers had transferred the money to a Maybank account and an Alliance Bank account.

She was told that she might be able to retrieve the money transferred to the Maybank account but not the Alliance Bank account, as the money had already been withdrawn.

Priya is urging banks to have better communication and quicker ways of shutting suspicious transactions down.

“If they know that something is wrong, then they should have done something,” she said.

Another scam victim, an entrepreneur who only wanted to be known as Claire, 32, said she lost RM2,800 from her bank account after purchasing a handbag.

“I found this account on Instagram selling handbags and I bought one for about RM190. But when I went through my online transactions one day, I saw that several other transactions had been made, all costing RM2,800 in total,” she said.

Claire, who filed a police report and also reported the incident to her bank in January, said it was unlikely that she would get the money back.

“I hope the government can implement a mechanism to protect victims and compensate us quickly as it really hurts us financially,” she said.

MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong said such scams were becoming more rampant.

“Every month, we receive two or three such cases. The authorities must consider using the Proceeds of Crime Act of 2002 (Poca) to deal with scammers,” he said.

Chong advised the elderly to have a joint account with a trusted family member in order to avoid falling victim to such crimes.