KUALA LUMPUR: Petaling Jaya police had opened 57 investigation papers on non-existent loan cases, involving losses of almost RM700,000, from January to November, this year.
District police chief ACP Nik Ezanee Mohd Faisal said 28 arrests were made and brought to court this year.
“The modus operandi was to randomly advertise loan offers through social media such as Facebook, short messaging service (SMS) and WhatsApp,” he said in a statement, here, today.
He said complainants with financial problems felt that it was a chance to get a quick loan with low instalments, without thinking that it was a tactic to deceive victims.
He explained that complainants only realised that they had been scammed after various payments for the loan process were made to individual accounts and also after they were given unreasonable excuses when making queries, or when their calls were ignored.
Nik Ezanee said account owners or also known as ‘account mules’ were not the main suspects who carried out the scam, but also victims who sold their bank accounts to get some money without being aware of the activities behind it.
“We advise the public to deal with a familiar party or agency in loan matters, and not to easily fall for offers on social media,” he said. -Bernama
