MIRI: A woman in her 30s was left RM2,400 poorer following an attempt to secure a loan of RM10,000 over the internet.
Wishing to be known only as Jong, she told The Borneo Post yesterday that she had been facing some financial difficulties recently and decided to apply for a loan online as a solution to her problem sometime last week.
“I searched for a while and I stumbled upon a website that offered online loans. Despite being very careful about potential scam sites, I never thought that I would end up becoming a victim,” she said.
Jong related that after submitting her particulars along with the amount of money she wanted to borrow, she almost immediately received a call from someone claiming to be a clerk of the loan company, who briefed her on what she needed to do.
“Initially I was told that I needed to pay RM500 for the stamp duty, so I made the payment. Two days later, I was told that the company required me to pay RM900 as assessment fee for them to evaluate my credit score before the loan is approved.
“They even assured me that the money will be returned to me along with the approved loan. The way they explained was very convincing that I did as instructed and transferred the money.”
Jong said she was later informed that the loan had been credited into her bank account, but found it to be not true upon checking.
“I thought they may have mistakenly transferred the money into another account. When I called the company, the clerk said due to the large amount of the loan, I needed to bank-in another RM1,000 as processing fee.
“I told her that I was financially stricken and could only transfer RM600, to which she agreed,” she added.
She said the following day, a different person from the company contacted her to inform that the clerk’s action of giving her a ‘discount’ was against company policy, and that she had to pay the remaining RM400 if she hoped to secure the loan.
“So, I made the fourth transaction (RM400) after the call. The caller contacted me again after that, claiming the company was still unhappy with both the clerk and I and that we each had to pay a penalty of RM2,500.”
Jong said at that point, she sensed something was not right and immediately lodged a police report.
“I trusted the company because the information displayed on the website was very convincing. However, I did a little investigation and found out that the actual company under this name was supposed to be a credit company that helps people to check and report their credit score.
“The website I visited was a fake one which is run by an online money lender,” she said, adding she wanted to highlight her plight as a reminder to others not to fall victim to a similar online scam.