Coin collector claims nearly scammed by Facebook ‘friend’
KUCHING: A coin collector lodged a police report yesterday claiming to have nearly been scammed by a Facebook friend.
The 36-year- old from Kota Samarahan, who only wished to be identified as Roy, claimed that a Facebook friend named ‘Katherine Allen’, purportedly from Los Angeles, California, proposed to purchase his coin collection for RM350,000.
“Thinking that the interest was real, we continued our negotiations via WhatsApp. Based on our agreement, once I had received the payments, only then the coins would be shipped to California,” he said.
‘ Katherine Allen’ then sent him a message saying the money had been transferred to his bank account via the Bank of America, however an activation fee of RM850 was needed to release the ‘pending funds’.
“According to ‘ Katherine’, I had to pay the activation fee as it was the first time that my bank account had received money from an international bank,” he said.
Roy said this struck him as odd and he decided to get out of the deal.
Moments later, he was contacted by a man claiming to be ‘ Kenny Lim’ from the United States, demanding the activation fee and that ‘Katherine’ would lodge a report with the Federal Bureau of Investigation if the fee was not immediately settled.
“I, however, googled the account number of the supposed agent in Malaysia and found out that the account had been fl agged to be a scam. Luckily, I had not sent out the coins,” said Roy.
He added the public should be aware of such scams and “too good to be true” offers made by online ‘ friends’.