by Balqis Jazimah Zahari
TELUK INTAN: A 26-year-old female clerk of a private company suffered a loss of RM139,616 after being cheated by an online ‘part-time’ job fraud syndicate.
Hilir Perak District Police Chief, Assistant Commissioner Ahmad Adnan Basri said, the police received a report from a woman working as a clerk in a private company realising that she was cheated by a ‘part-time job’ fraud syndicate online at 12.25am yesterday
“As a result of the initial investigation, the police found that the victim at about 8pm, last 26 April while at home in Langkap here received a message on Whatsapp on 011-63706329 introducing herself as ‘Miss Rina’ offering several job opportunities ‘part time’ online that allows the victim to earn commission money according to the work assignment that needs to be done.
“Next, the victim expressed interest and the individual included the victim in a group on the Telegram application under the name of LCX Task Group 21,” he said in a statement today.
Ahmad Adnan said, the individual explained to the victim how to do each work assignment given and the commission money would be paid to the victim according to the result of the amount of work assignment done.
“The first work assignment is that the victim needs to increase the popularity of the private company’s website by pressing the ‘share’ link on the Facebook application and doing a ‘screenshot’, then including it in the telegram group as proof of the completion of the first assignment.
“The victim gets a commission of 10 percent from the first assignment. Meanwhile, for the second job assignment, the victim has to browse the Shopee application account and has to choose the items according to the assignment given and according to the total price stated on the assignment.
“The victim is also required to deposit money in advance for the assignment. After completing the assignment, the victim receives a 20 percent commission,” he said.
He said, as a result of performing the task several times, the victim had made 13 online payments to four private financial institutions totaling RM 139,616.50 starting from April 26 to May 5 according to the amount of the assignment price given to obtain the commission money. .
“After putting in all the money, the victim is asked to put in additional money to get back the full amount of money put in by the victim.
“However, the victim did not do it because she felt suspicious about this matter and the victim realised that she had been cheated and suffered a loss amounting to RM 139,616.50,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Adnan said, statistics show an increase in the modus operandi of fraudulent ‘part-time’ job offers where the total number of cases received by District police headquarters (IPD) Hilir Perak over the past year was as many as eight cases. Investigations were opened with a total loss of RM 133,207.
“Whereas for this year starting from the beginning of the year until last May 11, eight investigation papers were opened with a total loss of RM 267, 729.42, showing an increase in the modus operandi of fraudulent ‘part-time’ job offers.
“The victims of the case mostly consist of young people aged between 20 and 40 years old who are mostly looking for extra income easily as seen on social media,” he said.
Therefore, he said, the police advised the public not to be easily influenced by advertisements on social media in obtaining ‘part-time’ job opportunities and earning income through commissions from intermediaries in online e-commerce transactions such as Lazada, Shopee, Mudah and other online businesses.
