Sunday May 12, 2013

RM70,000 poorer after phone calls

By ZAZALI MUSA
zaza@thestar.com.my

Expensive mistake: Lim informing Puah of her plight.

JOHOR BARU: It took just two phone calls within an hour from so-called bank officers to convince a housewife to part with her RM70,000 savings.

Lim Lee Yeng, 39, lost the hard-earned money she had been saving from working in a factory in Singapore for 10 years.

She received a call last Wednesday at 9.24am on her mobile phone from a man claiming to represent a bank in Kuala Lumpur.

“The caller told me that I owed the bank RM3,000 in credit card debts but I informed him that my husband had settled the outstanding balance,” Lim said between sobs in a press conference yesterday.

At 10.15am later, she received a second call from another man who introduced himself as “Gan Kian Haw”.

Gan claimed that he was a Bank Negara officer and had asked her where she kept her money.

Lim said she revealed to him the name of the bank where she kept her savings.

“Gan” claimed that Bank Negara had discovered that there was a cheque for RM39,000 issued to Lim and that investigation by the central bank showed that it was illegal money.

To prevent anyone from withdrawing that money from her bank account, “Gan” advised her to transfer her savings of RM70,000 to Gan's account in the same bank.

“So I went to the bank and transferred RM70,000 to him.

“But when I enquired with the bank later, an officer told me that somebody had withdrawn my money, leaving only RM248.28 in my account,” said Lim.

When she reached home, she told her neighbours about the calls and realised that she had been conned.

She lodged a police report at the Kulai police station that day.

Johor PKR Legal Aid Bureau chief Jimmy Puah Wee Tse urged people not to reveal their bank information to strangers over the phone.

“Just ignore the calls. If in doubt, you must check with the respective bank. Don't make hasty decisions,” he said.

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Sunday May 12, 2013

RM70,000 poorer after phone calls

By ZAZALI MUSA zaza@thestar.com.my

By ZAZALI MUSA
zaza@thestar.com.my