Bernama employee loses RM10,200 to phone scammers

KUALA LUMPUR: An employee of the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) lost her savings of RM10,200 to phone scammers who conned as a bank officer and two policemen early this week.

The victim, who wanted to be known only as Nadirah, 31, said she was in her office in Jalan Tun Razak here on Tuesday afternoon when she received a telephone call from the first man claiming to be from a local bank.

“The man claimed that I had unsettled debt from a personal loan of RM50,000 taken from a bank in Datuk Keramat, Penang.

“I was shocked and told him I had never taken a loan or had any dealings with the bank. He said he would check again and then he claimed that someone had used my name to take the loan which I had to settle. I was afraid and panicked,” she told Bernama yesterday.

Nadirah said the man who introduced himself as Fahmi Ismail then connected her to what was supposedly the Penang Contingent Police Headquarters to speak to ‘Sergeant Fikri Abdul’ who explained to her the procedures to resolve the matter.

After a few moment, she said the ‘sergeant’ then connected her to speak to Inspector Peter Wong, an ‘investigation officer’ from the Commercial Crime Investigation Division.

“He convinced me that I should use a temporary bank account as all my bank accounts had been frozen pending investigations. Then I was told to transfer all the money in my bank account to the account he gave me,” she said.

Nadirah said the man then asked her to transfer money into a Bank Rakyat account under the name of Siti Sarah Abdul.

She added that the ‘investigation officer’ also told her to send a photograph of the receipt as proof she had transferred the money to his handphone through the WhatsApp application, but as soon as she did that, all the telephone numbers could no longer be contacted.

Realizing that she had been conned, Nadirah quickly lodged a police report at the Gombak District Police Headquarters on Wednesday.