KUALA LUMPUR: Despite never having taken a loan from a loan shark or even contacting one, many Malaysians still find themselves being harassed, with some having their homes plastered with red paint or worse.
One such victim has been a 57-year-old housewife named Gan from Petaling Jaya, whose house has been repeatedly disturbed after an unknown person used a fake IC with her address to take a loan from a supposed loan shark.
This included having her house locked with chain locks and warning notices addressed to an unknown person named Cheng Ann Keat from the loan sharks, placed on her gate earlier on June 26 this year.
After filing a police report, the police contacted the numbers on the warning notices to learn that Cheng had apparently taken a RM300 loan from the loan sharks and had given them a picture of his fake IC with Gan’s address on it.
Despite this being a clear case of mistaken identity and misuse of a fake IC, the loan sharks demanded that Gan pay them RM5,000 to remove her address from their “blacklist”.
Having refused to do so since she was innocent, Gan’s home was then locked again by the loan sharks on July 7, with red paint recently being splashed on her home on Oct 30.
“If anyone has any info on this Cheng person, please let us know, as we don't know what else to do.
“I don't want to live in fear over the actions of someone else who I don't even know,” Gan said during a press conference at Wisma MCA on Wednesday (Dec 3).
Another case saw IT consultant Mr Cheah, 55, have his rented-out apartment constantly plastered with loan shark notices that were addressed to his tenant, who had already passed away.
Cheah had rented out his apartment in Subang Jaya to a 65-year-old tenant named Woon since 2016, but Woon had been having financial difficulties, with her missing eight months of rent and utility payments.
Woon then passed away on Nov 6 earlier this year, but Cheah’s apartment was then plastered with loan shark notices and threats later on Nov 12 and Nov 2,5, which has left him rattled.
“I have never even contacted a loan shark before, but now my property’s image has been ruined by this constant harassment despite my tenant already no longer being here,” he said in the same press conference.
But a worse fate awaited another victim named Teh, 32, as her father-in-law's home was burnt to the ground after her husband inquired about a personal loan from an advertisement on Facebook.
Her husband, O, 30, had provided some personal details when inquiring about the loan on Nov 7, but ultimately decided to opt out after careful consideration.
Despite this, the culprits then transferred S$300 to O’s account without his or Teh’s knowledge on the same day.
The couple then received a call on Nov 10 demanding repayment of S$3,500 with the threat of burning O’s father's home in Kluang, Johor if left unpaid.
Being unaware of the S$300 that was transferred to O’s account earlier, the couple ignored the threat, only to then learn that O’s father's home was burnt down on Nov 15.
A week later, the supposed loan sharks threatened to burn Teh’s father's home in Perak down too, and the couple decided to pay S$7,000 to them out of fear for the safety of their family.
However, the loan sharks then demanded another S$5,000 from the couple as “payment for his worker's fee to burn the house”, leaving the couple fearing for their lives and finances.
MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong said he believed these cases were tied to scammers rather than actual loan sharks.
“I believe these are scammers who have happened on the information, as loan sharks do simply give loans without properly verifying if an IC is fake or not.
“The fact that many of these victims continue to be harassed despite paying back the loan sharks also cements that these are scammers who are just looking to extort their victims.
“If anyone has been forced to overpay their loan shark loan and is still being told to pay more, I advise you to lodge a police report as this is considered extortion under the law,” he said during the press conference.
