by DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, Jan 17: Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman Chong Chieng Jen wants banks to take accountability for failing to prevent scam transactions even when it has been reported in a timely manner.
In a statement today, he said despite Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s repeated directives for banks to be responsible and protect their customers from unauthorised transactions, there are still critical lapses by the banks here.
Chong, who is also Stampin’s Member of Parliament (MP), referred to a case brought to him by a 74-year-old lady who was scammed of RM15,000 unauthorised charge onto her credit card.
He explained that despite the woman’s swift action in contacting the bank to stop the transaction, there was no immediate action taken by the bank to inform the National Scam Responsible Centre to freeze the scam transaction, forcing the woman to pay the unauthorised charge.
“In the present case, it is obvious that there is some short-comings in the bank’s credit card system in that it was not able to stop the scam transactions despite such early notification.
“There was also a lack of action on the part of the bank’s officer when she was notified of the scam.
“I urge Bank Negara Malaysia to take swift action to carry out the order of the Prime Minister and to protect the rights and interests of the common people,” he said.
He also pointed out that the bank should cancel the unauthorised charges on the woman’s account and refund her as the bank had deducted funds from her account without her authority.
Chong said he had also forwarded this complaint to the Ministry of Finance. – DayakDaily
