File photo for illustration purposes
KUCHING: All Malaysians must be very vigilant when performing e-transactions to avoid falling prey to online scams.
According to Shopee Malaysia regional managing director Ian Ho, the sellers should never agree to any transaction conducted outside of Shopee platform.
“Shopee has a full-suite of integrated payment gateways and logistics services that support transactions and allow both sellers and the buyers track their shipments/parcels in real-time.
“We also have an in-built chat function that allows sellers and buyers to converse on the platform, protecting both parties’ personal information whilst making it easier for Shopee to mitigate and investigate any potential dispute.
“As such, we would like to remind all sellers to conduct all transactions and conversations via the official Shopee App and website as that way, their transactions and conversations can be protected by Shopee,” he said in a press statement, issued in response to a recent case where a university student lost his entire savings of RM5,523 to a scammer, who impersonated as a buyer of the shoes that the victim was selling via Shopee.
Ho highlighted the ‘Shopee Guarantee’ – a policy serving to protect both buyers and sellers towards ensuring safe transactions on the Shopee platform.
With Shopee Guarantee, sellers would be protected from bogus orders in that Shopee would verify that the payment had been made by the buyers, before informing the sellers that it would be alright to ship out the ordered products.
“As Shopee holds the money from all purchases in escrow, the payments will automatically be released to the sellers once the buyers accept the orders – or when the Shopee Guarantee period ends,” said Ho.
He also warned the sellers against disclosing any personal detail to unknown parties, pointing out that scammers nowadays had been getting more creative in tricking their victims into sharing sensitive information such as their one-time password (OTP), credit card and online banking details, account’s usernames and passwords.
He said such acts by scammers were usually committed outside of the platform via emails, phone calls or text messages – making it almost impossible to track after such scam had been performed.
“It is important to note that transactions that take place on the platform would not require buyers to request for such details from the other party, as the platform would have the necessary information to complete the transaction. Do not respond to any OTP request via phone calls or text messages if you did not initiate any transaction.
“Users must never entertain calls from any individual impersonating as a bank officer – claiming that you have a court’s action or proceeding, claiming that you are suspected to be involved in fraudulent activities, or claiming that the OTP has been wrongly sent to your mobile phone number and requested you to confirm your number and provide them with the said OTP,” he added.
Sellers on Shopee who suspect any scam in their orders can reach out to Shopee via [email protected], or call 03-2777 9222 from Mondays to Sundays – 9am to 6pm, including public holidays.