‘Postings on social media could be used by fraudsters’

KUCHING: Local social media users are advised to stop expressing or venting their emotions, especially concerning their personal lives on social networking apps.

PKR Women vice-chairperson Voon Shiak Ni adavised social media users to have reservations about what they can post on social media to protect themselves and their families.

Voon said postings on personal lives could be picked up by scammers who will play on their emotions, and make them vulnerable to online fraud.

“l brought up this issue as I was approached by a lady who came to see me last week, saying her daughter insisted on going to Kuala Lumpur to see a Facebook friend who will meet her at the airport there.

“She had advised her daughter not to go and they fought over the issue. We managed to have a long discussion on the matter and talked to the daughter,” she said yesterday.

Voon said Malaysia is listed by onlinefraudguide.com as among one of the countries in the world at high risk of online fraud.

She recalled that many Malaysians had been duped into forking out money to ‘lovers’ they met on the social network.

“There have been cases where our Malaysian women were cheated of their hard-earned savings. Last year in Selangor, there was shocking statistics of more than 500 cases of ‘African scams’ involving losses of more than RM2O million.

“What’s the point of getting many ‘likes’ for your postings when you only expose yourself to scammers?” she asked.