JOHOR BARU: A senior citizen lost almost RM600,000 after falling victim to a phone scam from an individual claiming to be a National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) officer.
Johor police chief Comm M. Kumar said that the 70-year-old woman lodged a report on Monday claiming that she lost RM584,000 of her savings.
“The victim stated that in early May this year, she received a call from a person claiming to be an officer from the NSRC, accusing her of having a record involving a cheating case.
“She then was contacted by another individual claiming to be a police officer from a northern state, saying the victim has a bank account registered under her name in that state, but she denied it,” Comm Kumar said in a statement here yesterday.
He said the suspect convinced the victim to hand over all of her bank accounts for “investigation” purposes.
He said the victim complied with the suspect’s instructions, placing her ATM card – which also contains the PIN for one of her bank accounts – at the specified location.
The victim received instructions to move funds from multiple bank accounts to the suspect’s account, totalling nearly RM600,000, with the intention of conducting an investigation.
“However, in the middle of this month, the victim made a check with the bank and found out that some RM584,000 had been taken out through an ATM and a money transfer to an unknown name,” he added.
He said the victim then realised she had been cheated and lodged a report.
The case is now classified under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating.
“This is a reminder that the NSRC is a call centre where it only receives calls from the public and is only a one-way communication channel.
“The NSRC will not make calls to anyone. As a result, anyone calling and pretending to be from the centre is a scammer,” he said.
Comm Kumar also urged the public to visit the police commercial department social media platforms on Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok to find out the latest modus operandi used by scammers.
