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MIRI, July 10: Two white-collar women in their 30s in Miri have fallen victim to two separate scams, losing a total of RM190,737.
According to Sarawak Commissioner of Police (CP) Datu Mohd Azman Ahmad Sapri, the first case involved an executive of an oil company who, on July 2, received an advertisement which offered an online part-time job through her WhatsApp account.
Despite not knowing the caller, she contacted the suspect, who identified himself as human resource manager Farhana Arwaa Abaasa from Aevus Studio Company Sdn Bhd, who offered her an online job where she only needed to click ‘like’ and ‘subscribe’ and would be paid RM20 for each click.
She was later asked to deal with an individual named ‘Penny Penny O’Case’, supposedly the company receptionist, for payment.
She was then instructed to perform a task called ‘Merchant Currency Data Task’ where she was required to make payments according to the price of Data Task to a bank account given by Penny Penny O’Case.
Between July 3 and July 7, the victim made ten payment transactions to eight different bank accounts involving RM106,737. Â
She only realised that it was a scam after she had run out of money and that there was no refund from the suspect as promised.Â
Meanwhile, in another case, a female manager of a private company lost RM84,000 in a phone scam.
On July 7, the victim received a call from an unknown caller who claimed to be from the HSBC Credit Card section.
The caller told the victim that some individuals used her name to apply for a credit card at Ipoh, Perak, and the card was charged twice, once on June 23, 2023, and another time on June 24, 2023, involving RM7,904.69.
The victim’s call was then transferred to (supposedly) a Bank Negara ‘officer’, who confirmed she was being ‘investigated’.Â
She was then transferred to ‘Sergeant Kelvin Lim’ who told her she had been involved in a money laundering case amounting to RM600,000.
The victim was then referred to an ‘ACP Kho Fei Chow’ who was in charge of the case and the only person who could help clear her name.
‘ACP Kho Fei Chow’ then instructed the victim to withdraw all savings from her accounts and deposit them into an account given by the suspect for the latter to ‘clean’ it.
The victim withdrew all RM84,800 from her three accounts and deposited it into two different accounts given by the suspect in three transactions.
The victim only realised she had been scammed when she failed to contact the suspect, following which she made the police report. — DayakDaily
