Hashima (fourth from right) showing the police report lodged by some of the complainants against a restaurant operator cum wedding caterer and planner.
KOTA KINABALU: The Consumers Front of Sabah (CFOS) has called for more committed and concerted effort by the government to combat fraud by dishonest and unethical business operators.
Its secretary-general Hashima Hasbullah Yahya said this is necessary in order to better protect the consumers, and to send out a clear and strong message against rogue business operators who are fraudsters and scammers in disguise.
“There have been so many scams, year in year out, and many consumers have been cheated of their hard-earned money, and in some cases, their life savings, even. We thus hope the judiciary would mete out harsher punishment to scammers; they should be put in jail to serve as a lesson for them, as well as a warning to others.
“As for the consumers who were victimised, please come and see us and we will advise and guide them on how to get justice done. Don’t just keep quiet as, this will indirectly encourage the scammer to continue to cheat the others,” she said.
Hashima also urged the relevant authorities like the Local Authority to revoke the trading licence of convicted rogue business operators, and to blacklist them from applying for new trading licence in future.
“The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) too upon receiving public complaints and satisfactory investigation should move to block these fraudulent organisations or individuals, to prevent them from continuing to cheat the public using bogus advertisement in the social media like Facebook or their own website,” she added.
Hashima made the call in a press statement issued yesterday, after helping two groups of consumers in lodging police reports against a restaurant operator cum wedding caterer and planner for failing to deliver the promised catering service on the wedding day despite having received full payment or deposit way in advance.
One of the victims even had to mobilise his family members, friends and relatives, in the last minutes, to salvage the embarrassing situation which left them a traumatising memory till these days.
The culprit also failed to honour his promise to compensate them for the fiasco. Most of the victims have fallen prey to his attractive ‘50% discount’ wedding packages.
Police reports were also lodged in other districts such as Kota Belud and Kota Marudu against the 27-year-old wedding planner and caterer from Telipok, for allegedly luring people to invest in a non-existence government catering project with the promise of a lucrative 100% return on their investment, within a short period of three months.
While the exact number of victims is still uncertain at the moment, the losses incurred by the known victims ranged from RM5,000 to RM125,000 and the total amount involved was estimated to be more than RM500,000.
Among the victims were civil servants including teachers and police personnel.
The culprit managed to dupe the victims to invest in his bogus scheme by providing them with a fake Letter of Offer for the non-existence catering project and a so-called ‘investment agreement’ prepared by him that was endorsed by a Justice of Peace (JP) operating from the Wisma MUIS.
To better convince the investors, he even issued post-dated cheques to them, which later bounced when some of the victims tried to cash them on the stipulated dates. However, the culprit who is believed to have been conducting his monkey business for several years ran out of his luck on Thursday night when he was arrested by police personnel from the Commercial Crime Division, in a sting facilitated by CFOS.
“We would like to record our utmost appreciation and commendation to the Commercial Crime Officer-in-Charge, ASP Syed Abdul Rahman Syed Mohsin for sacrificing his official leave to ensure a successful sting leading to the culprit’s arrest,” said Hashima.
She then urged members of the public to be more cautious when engaging the service of wedding planner/caterer, as complaints received by CFOS indicated that there are other dubious operators around.
Consumers are strongly advised to keep photos of bridal bed (pelamin), bridal suits or gowns, wedding cakes etc which they have selected from the wedding planner’s albums or from the internet which they have agreed to provide, and make sure the details of order are listed or written fully in the invoice or order form.
“Before this, we also handled two other cases relating to wedding planners. We succeeded in helping the complainants to obtain justice against one of the fraudsters, where the Consumer Claims Tribunal awarded full refund to the complainants. As for the other case, after it had gone viral in the social media, we are currently gathering more information besides asking the victims to come forward to lodge police report, and hopefully they too will get justice that they deserved,” she added.
Hashima also advised the consumers to always conduct thorough background check on the wedding planners, before engaging their service.
“They could also contact us for such purpose and we would be more than willing to share what we know, based on facts,” she concluded.