KUCHING, Jan 3: After paying a RM20 deposit that did not go through to secure a home cleaning service she found on Facebook, a woman ended up losing RM44,074.49 in eight unauthorised bank transfers in a short span of less than one hour on Dec 30, 2022.
While warning the public not to easily trust online ads, Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen emphasised that had the bank’s internet banking security system been more vigilant and secured, such consecutive transfers of funds would definitely raise some red flags in the system to stop the transfers.
“But this was not the case. Moreover, not only was there no such alert within the bank’s security system, the victim did not receive any notification nor any OTP or TAC from the bank,” he said in a statement today.
This came after the woman sought help from Chong to write a letter to the bank after a police report had been lodged.
On the case, Chong, who is also Padungan assemblyman, learned that it happened when the woman came across the advertisement for a home cleaning service on Facebook which she was interested to engage in as the Chinese New Year is approaching.
“But she encountered some problem in trying to make payment for the said service. The next day (Dec 31, 2022), she discovered that her Public Bank account was blocked and upon enquiry with the bank, she found out that there were eight consecutive transfers of funds from her account to a recipient’s account with AmBank Berhad which was unknown to her.
“What was peculiar in this case was that she had previously set her Public Bank account with the condition of one-day maximum withdrawal limit of RM10,000. She did not receive any notification from Public Bank that her account limit setting was changed (to enable withdrawals of more than RM10,000),” he explained.
The eight transfers of funds involving a total sum of RM44,074.49 happened within a short span of less than one hour between 7.37pm and 8.29pm.
Chong, who is also Stampin MP, had yesterday (Jan 2) immediately helped the victim to write to Public Bank to demand for the reimbursement of the whole sum as the money was kept in the custody of the bank and definitely there was some deficiency in the bank’s security system thereby allowing such abnormal transfers to occur within such a short time and involving such large amount.
“I have also sent the same letter to Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) with the hope that BNM, being the regulator of some financial institutions in the country, can act to protect individual’s interest and money in the bank.
“I shall also personally bring the matter, together with all those bank scam cases which I previously handled, to the attention of the Minister of Finance (Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who is also the Prime Minister). We cannot allow the banks to push their responsibility off to their customers instead of improving the security of their internet banking system,” he stressed. — DayakDaily
