By Farah Ghazi
Edited by Maizatul
Credit: The Star news
JOHOR BAHRU, 31st December 2023: A 19-year-old college student from Kuala Lumpur has lost around RM15,000 after becoming a victim of a part-time employment scam she discovered on social media.
The student, who wanted to be called Wendy, said she saw a post on Facebook where she could earn some money by simply leaving “good reviews” for an airline company.
A woman contacted her and claimed to be an employee of the company. She explained the part-time job to the student, which apparently turned out to be a scam.
Wendy stated that the woman asked her to only write some good reviews for the company to get the online traffic, which is referring to visits, also known as "sessions," that are a standard approach to assessing an online business’ ability to attract users. The company also paid her RM23 when she completed her first work.
After that, the woman told Wendy to transfer RM100 to a bank account in order for her to complete the following work. She did the transfer and received RM131 that came together with the commission.
“I got my money back plus the commission as promised. This made me believe it was a legitimate part-time job that could help me make some pocket money,” said Wendy to the MCA National Public Complaints and Service Bureau Deputy Chief Chua Jian Boon.
As the time passed, Wendy said that the amount she was required to pay increased with each job, pushing her into borrowing money from a friend in order to continue completing the part-time job. But eventually, the amount of money required continued to increase to the amount that she could not afford to give.
Thousands of ringgit were given for the part-time job itself and she was told to transfer a large amount of money, which is RM5,000. That was when she smelled something fishy and dialled 997 (the National Scam Respond Centre).
To be specific, throughout her so-called “part-time”, she lost almost RM15,000, of which RM12,000 was the money she borrowed from her friend.
The reason why she did not have any doubt or suspect anything in the first place was because the bank account she transferred the money to had no match on "Semak Mule" which is an application that helps to detect scammers.
Not only that, Wendy also received an e-certificate from the company that was reportedly granted by the Malaysian Companies Commission.
Likewise, Chua, the Deputy Chief of the MCA National Public Complaints and Service Bureau, stated that he has received two identical reports involving the loss of more than RM30,000. He advised people who had gone through similar problems to contact the bureau at 07-3630008.
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