Accountant loses RM100,000 to scammers

KOTA KINABALU - An accountant lost over RM100,000 when she was cheated by online scammers while trying to make a RM1mil backdoor loan.

The 38-year-old woman had initially wanted to borrow RM50,000 from the online loan service provider.

However, after she was shown a cheque allegedly for her approved loan through social media, she asked if she could borrow up to RM1mil.

She was asked to pay processing and lawyer fees to get the money cashed out on Sept 15.

Kota Kinabalu police chief Asst Comm M. Chandra said the woman made a total of 12 tran­sactions within the day, totalling RM103,000 for the bogus loans.

“She only realised that something was not right about a day or two after transferring all the mo­­ney and the loan did not come,” he said.

ACP Chandra said such scams, known as Fake Loan Schemes, would target those who have been blacklisted or in dire need of money.

He said the scammers would advertise about their loan servi­ces in social media such as Facebook, claiming they could even approve loans for those blacklisted.

“We have received 66 reports of such cases involving losses of about RM510,022 from 2016 until August this year,” he said.