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SEREMBAN: Scammers preying on those desperate for cash are using bank logos in online platforms offering non-existent loans to lure their victims.
Last week, a 40-year-old woman who owns a motorcycle workshop in Mantin, near here, learnt it the hard way when she was scammed twice and lost more than RM117,000 after responding to advertisements put up by scammers on Facebook.
The victim was drawn to the advertisements claiming to be by local banks as it offered low interest rates.
In the first case, on clicking on the link on the advertisement, she was contacted by a man who sought her personal particulars to process a RM100,000 loan.
Three days later on June 10, the victim was contacted again by the man and the scamming began.
Negri Sembilan police commercial crimes investigations department (CCID) chief Supt Aibee Abd Ghani said over the next four day, the victim was contacted by the scammer and asked to make payments to process the loan.
He said this included payments for insurance, to expedite the loan, increase the loan limit and upfront instalment payments which were made to mule bank accounts.
“The victim fell for the ruse and made the payments up to about RM42,000 until she realised she had been cheated on Monday and lodged a police report,” Aibee said.
He said the scammers continued to contact the victim ,pestering her to make more payments for the “approval” of the loan.
Aibee said about the same time, the victim had also applied for another “loan” with another “bank” which she came across also on Facebook.
He said the victim was contacted by a woman and was put through the same ruse and lost almost RM75,000.
In a separate case here on Thursday , a 39-year-old accountant lost RM104,000 after scammers called her up and told her that she had won a lucky draw by an online shopping platform.
Aibee said the scammers had told the woman that she had won about RM3,500 and requested for her credit card details to make the payment.
“The woman fell for the ruse and provided details of two of her credit cards,” he added.
Aibee said soon after, the woman began receiving text message alerts of her credit card being used for several transactions with the online shopping platform.
He said the victim tried contacting a number the scammer had called from but it was no longer active.
Aibee said the woman promptly contacted the two banks that issued her credit cards and learnt that fortunately several other transactions were rejected as the daily limit had been exceeded.
