KUALA LUMPUR: A sales assistant was duped into believing she had made RM3.5mil in an investment, but ended up being cheated of RM22,500.
The woman, who only wanted to be known as Yap, 48, said she was introduced to a Mr Lu, who was supposedly from Hong Kong, by a friend about a year ago.
“We met about three times in Malaysia last year,” she told a press conference accompanied by MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong yesterday.
Yap said Lu introduced himself as a manager in an investment company in Hong Kong and told her that he had invested RM5,000 under her name during a company event.
She claimed that Lu and the investment company senior manager, known only as Mr Zhang, told her that she had earned RM3.5mil through the investment but she had to pay RM92,500 for bank charges and tax payment.
Yap said she was told that RM22,500 was for bank charges and RM70,000 was for tax payment.
She said she resorted to borrowing RM20,000 from loan sharks to pay the stated bank charges.
Yap said on April 26, she paid the RM22,500 through a Maybank account and was shocked to receive a call the next day from someone claiming to be a Hong Kong Customs officer.
She said she was told that she would be charged with money laundering if she did not pay the RM70,000.
Realising that she could have been cheated, Yap said she lodged a report at the Salak South police station on May 29.
Chong said he often highlighted such cases but there were still many more surfacing.
“We have to be very careful of these scams and not fall victim to them,” he said, adding that in the last two years, he received 10 such cases.
Read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/05/31/sales-assistant-loses-rm22500-to-scam/#64GRuvhTs5P0uIhb.99
