The purpose of online scams always is for money. Sources: BusinessFirstFamily
In this informative era, online scams issues are still one of the crimes that cause a lot of concern in public that might cause loss of money or even mental health issues.
Online scam is one of the types of fraud and crime that happened on the Internet known as cybercriminals. These scammers usually try to capture user login and passwords credentials, credit card information, and even identity for the purpose of online scamming.
According to New Straits Times, there is a total loss of RM58 million that Malaysians lost due to online shopping scammers in 2021 due to the rise of online shopping especially after happened the COVID-19 pandemic. There are around 8,162 cases of online shopping fraud in the first 10 months of 2021 but there are only a total of 5,846 cases in 2020 and 3,512 cases in 2019.
Erin, 23, was nearly tricked in job scams that occurred two years ago while using Facebook to seek a job when she was still in Johor Bahru during the covid-19 outbreak.
Erin said that she saw a job vacancy on Facebook while she was looking for a job that was able work in Singapore, she contacted the person through Whatsapp.
The person that contacted her had asked her to send those documents by photo for him and the reason to use the photo is that this is more convenient for him to proceed with the application but usually they will send by PDF file. After those submissions to the person, he just asked her to open an account on Skrill for paying him the non-refundable registration fee is about SGD300 to an account that does not seem like a company account but a personal account.
*Skrill (formerly Moneybookers) is a digital wallet provider established in 2001 which offers a range of online payment and money transfer services.*
“I started to feel weird so that I said I will transfer the money after the interview but the word he used for replied me also very weird as he called me at 11 pm,” said Erin.
On the day of the interview, he didn’t mention anything about the job but asked her to pay him the fee first. After 10 minutes, the person gave her another phone number for contact purposes and started to talk about another topic such as crypto.
“I tried to search for more information about the company and job vacancy he mentioned before, but I found nothing and I realized is a job scam,” said Erin.
“I ended the interview immediately”
After ended the meeting, the person had realized that he might be exposed so he kept spamming me by using another Facebook account and WhatsApp and also sent Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) and Ministry of Manpower (MOM) letters to prove that he is not a scammer.
“I blocked his Facebook and WhatsApp. I didn't make a police report as I didn't lose money from this scam. A few days later I saw the news talking about this scam,” said Erin.
Read full article: https://www.chinapress.com.my/?p=2282305
The news that mentioned by Erin about the scammer
Erin added that please remember to do some online research on the firm or recruiter before applying for a job. Always double-check the job's validity using official websites or sources.
“Never trust the job post on unverified sources. And also, never send money to anyone whom you do not know or have not met in person before. If you are required to pay for a job, it’s guaranteed to be a scam,” said Erin.
Listen to Erin's full interview:
Strike Out Scams, is an online scam awareness campaign that was held on 11-19 July 2020.
Strike Out Scams, an online scam awareness campaign held by Han Chiang University College students whos taking a diploma in Mass Communication major in public relations and advertising in 2020 for their final year project.
Ooi Jun Shen, currently 23, the former vice-chairman of the Strike Out Scams awareness campaign said that the reason of hold this event is because nowadays many people are using the Internet or social media, which also leads to some people who are not good at using technology products being cheated online. So Strike Out Scams want to raise public awareness and educate the public from becoming victims of online scams
“I have never experienced an online scam myself. As for my family members, they have no experience of online scams, because I always teach them not to click on links you don't know on social media,” said Ooi.
Even in this advanced technology era, the public is easily faced with online scams due to this development of technology leading people to stay in the comfort zone that make people relieved and trust the “privacy safety” on the Internet.
Online shopping had to become a trend, especially after Malaysia's movement control order (MCO) was implemented, and most online shopping platforms required users to fill out those forms. However, it's possible that criminals could use some tricks during this process to find people who aren't as tech-savvy。
“Scammers is getting creative day by day”
“They used those social media platforms with a link or messages which lead the public to press it accidentally that might cause the information or bank account to be submitted and extorted by those scammers who might expose that information on the internet.”
“Actually that we need to go understand that there are how many types of the online scam which actually that there is a lot of different form of online scam,” said Ooi.
Types of Online Scam
“When we facing or experiencing online scam by ourselves or people around us such as family or friends, we must not panic due to panic might happen more bad consequences due to make those decisions during the panic,” said Ooi.
The first thing that those people who faced online scams should do is go to the police immediately and report these issues to them that does no matter the size of the issues and whether they happened online or on any platform.
The next thing that those people should do is log out of the social media account from all the devices due to the scammers might already have the old password of the social media account so that they can control the account to do anything and by the action of changing the password can help user to get back the control and let the scammers out of the control over the account.
Other than that, users might not as far as possible to go listen to others that are not familiar with the users, especially people or even strangers on the internet that might cause the second time of online scamming.
“As for advice to audiences, don’t over believe those online sellers on the internet or information that provided by some people that you might not be familiar with due to we might do not know the actual reason behind their action. For example, in the wet market of physical store shopping, as a buyer, we know the items that are genuine because it right in front of us but for those merchants that selling online, we do not know that there will be wrong items or even did not deliver the stock to you,” said Ooi.
Other than that, Ooi said that do not easily click into those unidentified links on social media or the link that is not authentic due to this might cause a series of problems or consequences such as the loss of the social media account or even the bank statements that might cause the bank balances to be stolen.
“As users of social media, you have to make sure that who do you turn to when you have a problem or who do you want to consult with such as your family members or your friends and even official platforms by not trying to be smart to make some decision by your own that might cause a series of problems when it is a wrong decision,” said Ooi.
“Prevention is better than cure”
“In this technologically advanced era, we must be prepared even though that online scam is invisible but we still have to believe that prevention is better than cure. Do not wait until you get scammed only came for help that we should have known more information about these online scamming,” said Ooi.
“Protecting ourselves from the internet scams.”
Watch the full interview with Ooi:
Strike Out Scam, provided a lot of live sessions about the Online Scam. Check it out on the event's Facebook page:
Comments