Malaysians Endure RM10 Billion Scam Losses This Year, With Amount Still Rising

According to Malaysian police, Malaysians have lost almost RM1 billion to scams as of August this year.

Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) director Comm Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf said, despite repeated warnings, people still duped by such scams, which is disheartened.

Victims often see advertisements about investments on social media, but the ads are always scams, and they don't remember where they found the ads afterward.

In addition, Ramli revealed that one in every three cases of scam involves an elderly person. Victims aged above 61 endured at least 28% of the nearly RM1 billion loss this year.

People also fall victim to investment scams due to a lack of financial knowledge, Ramli said, adding that the scammers behind these fraudulent schemes take advantage of the popularity of well-known financial firms, posing as investment experts and promising to double or even triple their money within a few days or weeks.

Last month, Malaysian student Nurul fell victim to such a scam and was cheated out of RM500.

He saw an advertisement about an investment scheme and joined a Telegram group. The administrator sent him a promotional poster with the logo of HF Markets, a well-known forex broker, advertising an attractive return of RM7,500 with just RM300.

_{The fraudulent investment scheme offered by scammer}

In addition, Nurul saw other people in the group successfully invest and withdraw. However, these so-called “investors” worked for the scam syndicate.

_{The scammers pretend to be investors}

When Nurul wanted to withdraw his profits, the admin asked him to pay an exchange fee, which he could not afford. Even so, the scammers continued to pursue Nurul, repeatedly asking him to invest more money in the scheme.

Similar scams happen to Malaysians almost every day and CCID is working with the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to crack down on such fraudulent investment advertisements.

The police also believe that the authorities concerned should step up financial knowledge education so that the public will understand that the real investment is very complicated and cannot be as simple as the scammers described.