WHEN you receive a phone call or a text message from an unknown person, it would undoubtedly spark a worry – as you’ll be wondering how that person on the other end of the line managed to get your number to start with.
Between 2019 and 2021, a total of 51,631 cases were recorded resulting in losses amounting to RM1.6bil, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Jonathan Yasin told the Dewan Rakyat on March 14.
Even the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission declared, in a written reply at the Dewan Rakyat on March 3, that it blocked some 1.6 billion suspicious calls from reaching consumers between 2018 and 2021, thanks to the help of various parties.
These cases are, however, mostly glossed over as statistics by casual readers. But peel away the digits and you get sobering, worrying scenarios confirming that they, too can become victims.
The most persistent of these scam calls originate from one syndicate that bears no preamble; the Macau Scam. How it started is as much an urban legend as well as when it began.
But what is true is that their modus operandi involves posing as government and enforcement officers, then attempting to scare their victims into revealing their bank accounts.
And somehow, even with the press coverage of their increasing notoriety throughout the region especially during the pandemic lockdown, many Malaysians still get duped.
As recently as March 26, a uni…
