By William Isau
SIBU, Jan 11: A clinic assistant here lost RM36,500 in a scam.
Acting Sibu district police chief, Supt Collin Babat today disclosed that sometime in November last year, the 46-year-old victim got acquainted with a purported engineer from Singapore who identified himself
as Hafeez Bruce.
After a month of chatting, Bruce who had told the victim that he is working in Abu Dhabi, sought her assistance.
“The suspect told her that his bank account had been frozen and requested her to assist buying equipment on his behalf for his company,” he said.
The suspect promised to pay her back. The victim made four payments from December 23 to 31 totalling RM36,500 for the alleged purchase.
Despite this, she was asked to make more purchases.
“After she told her friends about the matter, she finally realised that she had been cheated,” said Collin.
In another case, a teacher was left RM4,451 poorer after falling for a lucky draw scam.
Collin said at about 4.30pm on January 6, the 39-year-old victim was at home in Jalan Bukit Lima Timur when she was contacted through WhatsApp by a man who claimed that he was from Shopee, an online shopping platform.
“The victim was told that she had won RM500 in a lucky draw but in order to claim it, she had to update her e-wallet on Shopee,” he said.
After updating her e-wallet, the suspect asked for her credit card number and the three-digit security code.
Collin said the suspect received 10 SMS for OTP (one-time password) on her phone.
A representative from the bank subsequently notified her of payments amounting to RM4,451 made to Grab Pay and Shopee accounts. — DayakDaily
