KUALA LUMPUR – Pakatan Harapan (PH) will form an action committee to help victims of scammers take up legal action, PKR information chief Fahmi Fadzil said.
He took the government and banking sector authorities to task for failing to deal with scammers effectively, adding that the PH committee will also be proposing institutional reforms to address the problem.
“The finance minister, the communications and multimedia minister, the home affairs minister, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) as well as any other relevant minister, should immediately work on an action that can reduce and eliminate scammer activities in Malaysia.
“ABM and Aibim also need to be honest that today’s banking security system is easily exploited by scammers,” the Lembah Pantai MP said on Facebook, referring to the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) and the Association of Islamic Banking and Financial Institutions Malaysia (Aibim).
He said the existing security system, especially for online banking, must be revamped immediately as scammers have used the same modus operandi whereby the victim’s bank account password or one-time password (OTP) is obtained in order to steal large amounts.
“If the modus operandi has been more or less the same, why is there no effective action – whether from the commercial banks, from ABM or from Aibim, or the government, to thwart this method?
“If OTP is the key misused by scammers, why don’t banks, ABM, Bank Negara order the use of a more secure authentication system? Why not suspend the use of OTP or switch to another authentication system, especially for large transactions?,” Fahmi said.
He said he also received complaints from the public that commercial banks do not bother contacting customers when large amounts are transferred.
Fahmi also mentioned the case of a doctor who lost RM13,000 from her savings account in just a few minutes.
The Vibes reported complaints by Putrajaya Hospital consultant physician and nephrologist Dr Rafidah Abdullah who lost that amount from her CIMB Bank account via three unauthorised transactions, leaving her with only RM50 in her account.
She said CIMB’s answer to her complaints was that she had accidentally clicked on links previously, which allowed another software to be registered to her bank account.
According to Fahmi, 20,000 people fell prey to scammers annually between 2017 and 2021, with a total of RM660 million lost.
From January to July this year, more than 13,000 people have fallen victim to scammers, losing RM427 million, he added.
“This works out to more than RM2 million stolen every day.” – The Vibes, August 22, 2022
