News & Reviews:   scammers

Another day in Malaysia and another Malaysian is scammed or cheated. Online scams alone have involved billions of ringgit lost or stolen and new AI tools are enabling scammers as well. Once lost or stolen, recovering said assets can be near impossible (unless you’re really lucky). So, it is better to not get scammed in the first place by being aware of all the possible scams that exist here in Malaysia.

In our opinion, knowing is half the battle won so we’ve listed our top 3 common scams here in Malaysia. In addition, there are already many official online resources such as the Latest Trending Commercial Crimes ebook from PDRM, the Financial Consumer Alert list from Bank Negara Malaysia and more. Read on to avoid being scammed in Malaysia.

One of the main reasons why Generative AI is such a game changer is that it enables people to do what they couldn’t do before. People who couldn’t draw or make music can now do that with just a line or two of text, code and even apps can be made in minutes and so forth. Unfortunately, this also applies to hackers and scammers as well, as generative AI is taking Cybersecurity threats to another level. Find out what to do about it here.

One of the major news that came out this year was back in October when MYAirline suspended its operation due to financial issues. Ever since then, the company has yet to fully settle refunds to affected customers, though a new issue has also arisen: Scammers pretending to offer compensation from the suspended airline.

Scammers are surely upping their game. A few hours ago, TGV Cinemas posted an update on fake ticket giveaways sent by them to unsuspecting victims. According to TGV, they are now sending QR codes pretending to give two free tickets via email.

Over 73 per cent of cell phone numbers in our country, or approximately 21 million people were leaked or sold to scammers last year. According to the Gogolook 2022 Annual Fraud Report, Malaysia was granted the unwanted title of being 1st place in cell phone numbers breached by the global security company.

We called it when Microsoft announced their VALL-E AI voice cloning project, but scammers using such AI voice cloners have already put them into action as an elderly couple were recently scammed out of $21000 Canadian dollars (~RM69115). Apparently, a “lawyer” had called the elderly couple claiming that their son had killed an American diplomat in a car accident, was in jail without a phone and needed money for legal fees.

Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) has warned its consumers to be wary when making online transactions as scammers are now utilising new and sophisticated scam tactics to trick them. These include creating fake apps, phishing sites and creating scam ads on social media.

The Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) has today warned Malaysians that it has never appointed any third parties to assist in the recently announced 2022 Special Withdrawal. Taking to its official Facebook account, EPF reminded Malaysians to be careful with fraudulent ads by scammers that are currently widespread on social media.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that the government has agreed to allow for another EPF withdrawal of up to RM10000 for Malaysians under 55 years old. This would be the fourth EPF withdrawal scheme since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic after i-Lestari, i-Sinar and i-Citra.

Recently, a 61-year-old businesswoman was recently a victim of a scam resulting in her losing more than RM800000. Based on the report, the scammers who were posing a Pos Laju mentioning that they have spotted the victim’s IC and credit card in Sabah. Soon after that, the victim received another call from the police headquarters in Sabah by a representative named Yang Chang, stating that she was involved in a bunch of illegal activities where she could be sentenced to prison if convicted.

Google recently weighed in online via Mark Risher, Senior Director for Account Security, Identity, and Abuse about the current online security COVID-19 situation. On Google’s side, Google Meet, GMail and Google Play Protect for example have mostly built-in automatic protections but there are a number of checkup tools to see if you’re safe or not and the advice on what to do about it. On our part, we’ve seen a marked increase in such scams.