KUCHING, Nov 25: Scams are nothing new but a teacher here has unfortunately become the latest victim and lost all her savings amounting to nearly RM600,000.
It all happened because the 51-year-old talked to a ‘Bank Negara’ officer who warned her to be wary of suspicious activity taking place in her bank account.
About 10 days ago, the victim first received a message saying that her bank account had an outstanding loan of some RM3,000 that required immediate payment.
Since she never applied for any loan and was worried that her bank account might be misused by someone else, she followed the instruction on the message to call a number.
The man who answered the phone claimed to be from the bank’s head office in Kuala Lumpur and identified himself as a bank officer. He later advised the teacher to make a report to Bank Negara.
Worried that her account might be hacked or used by someone else, the teacher immediately called ‘Bank Negara” on the number which had been given to her by the purported bank officer.
After lodging a report with ‘Bank Negara’, a supposed ‘police officer’ called and cautioned her that her account was allegedly used by criminals in money laundering.
The victim was given further instructions which she followed, involving going to an ATM and transferring her money to three different account numbers. The instruction was to empty her account, so she made three transfers involving all her savings.
Like many scam victims, the teacher felt like she was hypnotised to follow their instructions.
However, she only realised something was amiss yesterday and lodged police report. — Dayak Daily
