Putting pressure on banks

 

'Kill switch' can prevent scam victims from suffering hefty ...

Kill switch' not a cure-all | The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: The issue of whether banks should bear greater responsibility for clients losing money to online scammers is one for Parliament to decide, says Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said.

KUALA LUMPUR: The issue of whether banks should bear greater responsibility for clients losing money to online scammers is one for Parliament to decide, says Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) said this may be necessary in light of the issue often raised by the public amid the nation’s move towards digitalisation.

“It is the MPs that should discuss if a more robust insurance scheme is needed for banks and financial institutions that hold our money.

“This is also because we now have a Digital Ministry as the nation heads towards digitalisation,” she said in reply to a supplementary question by Kota Melaka MP Khoo Poay Tiong in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.

She added that the consumer himself should be careful and alert of scams.

Khoo asked if the banks should be made to bear responsibility for data breaches which result in their customers losing money to scammers.

He cited a recent complaint where a man claimed he had received a notification from a bank at 4.30am informing him of a change in the model of mobile phone used for his online transactions.

“The notification said that there would be a 12-hour cooling-off period before any transactions can proceed.

“However, in less than 12 hours, he found that his money had been transferred out of his account at about 8.30am,” said Khoo.

To this, Azalina said that she too almost fell victim to an online scam after receiving a notification at 3am.

“I was shocked that RM3,000 was transferred out of my account. Fortunately, I managed to get my money back,” she said.

Azalina advised the public to activate the “kill switch” linked to their bank accounts.

“If you get a notification at 4.30am, hit the kill switch on your banking app as soon as possible,” she said.

'Kill switch' can prevent scam victims from suffering hefty ...

The kill switch is an initiative of Bank Negara which was adopted by banks on March 1 last year.

On the law against online crimes, Azalina said it could be tabled and passed during the current meeting.

She called on MPs to debate the issue when that proposed law against online crimes is tabled.

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Red flag in credit card fraud

Red flag in credit card fraud

 

With huge profits, it is time for banks and telcos to invest more in improving their infrastructure against rising criminal activities.

IT came as a huge shock to my colleague when she was saddled with a RM38,000 credit card bill – five transactions that took place in Brazil within minutes of each other, a country she had never visited in her life.

The purported expense came when she was travelling overseas. She only discovered her credit card was missing three months after the incident when the bank asked if she had her card with her.

“I was with another colleague in Hong Kong at the time. He received the same SMS alert from his bank. We both called our banks at the same time. But the difference was his bank stopped the transaction because they could not verify it,” she said.

Despite showing proof that she was in Hong Kong at the time of the transaction, her bank could not provide her with the details of the case as they did not ask the merchant for it. The minute they found out the transactions were physical, they washed off their hands and sent her a letter which indicated she was liable for the RM38,000.

“They even tried to charge a currency conversion fee, late fee and interest on the disputed transactions. Finally, after days of frustrating exchanges with the bank, I reported the case to Bank Negara, and only now the bank is reaching out to the merchant to investigate,” my colleague told me.

Sadly, her quandary is not something new. Credit card fraud is on the rise in Malaysia. But financial institutions in general argue that if a card is lost or stolen, it is still the responsibility of the cardholder if any transactions take place. But shouldn’t the onus be on the bank to at least perform due diligence on red flag transactions?

A year ago, banks under the ambit of the Association of Banks in Malaysia (ABM) and Associa-tion of Islamic Banking and Financial Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM) launched their refreshed #JanganKenaScam awareness campaign.

At that time, the associations claimed that the campaign underscored the banking industry’s commitment to combating financial scams and preventing fraudulent banking activities.

They have since implemented several security measures to fight scams, such as migrating from the SMS One-Time-Password (OTP), tightening their fraud detection rules, imposing a cooling-off period for first-time online banking registrations, restricting secure authentications to a single device, and setting up dedicated fraud hotlines for customers.

According to the two associations, these measures have successfully prevented fraudulent transactions worth RM351mil.

But combating fraudsters is a constant battle, with the banks themselves admitting that there is an upward trend and huge losses due to credit card fraud.

Over the years, The Star has published numerous articles highlighting scams and scammers and credit card fraud.

In fact, exactly 10 years ago, we published a front-page article on fraudulent credit and debit card transactions.

We wrote: “Many consumers are questioning the assurance banks give on Internet security after discovering that their credit and debit cards have been used in unauthorised online transactions.”

Ten years later, nothing seems to have changed. If anything, things have got worse.

A study by Ipsos last December revealed that an overwhelming majority of Malaysians have encountered scams, with a distressing number reporting substantial financial harm. The study indicated that scams are exploiting the digital realm, signalling a shift in criminal tactics that jeopardises our collective economic health.

Despite the additional security measures, the current national scam awareness campaign throws the entire burden of fighting scams on poor defenceless Malaysians, many of whom are retired, in their senior age, and somewhat gullible.

This is in stark contrast to what our neighbour down south has done – Singapore is holding the telcos and banks responsible for customers who have fallen prey to scams.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) says financial institutions and telcos will have to compensate their customers who have been cheated if they are found to have breached their responsibilities.

These responsibilities include failure by banks to send outgoing transaction alerts to consumers and telcos failing to implement a scam filter for SMSes.

The Singapore authorities acknowledged that “responsibility for preventing scams should not lie solely with consumers but also with industry stakeholders”, such as the financial institutions and telcos.

The shared responsibility should also apply here because banks and telcos, as the primary gatekeepers, must do more to protect Malaysians.

Financial institutions play a critical role as a gatekeeper against the outflow of monies due to scams, while telcos play a supporting role as infrastructure providers for SMSes.

They must incorporate more circuit breakers and track the enormity of the scams that are taking place. Tracking is not good enough; they must also act on it.

With Budget 2025 to be tabled next week, I hope our reform-minded Finance Minister introduces stronger and better measures to help Malaysians and demand more from banks and telcos.

Banks and telcos have amazing balance sheets with huge profits. It is time that they invest more to improve the infrastructure against scamming and fraud.

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Fake property agents scamming renters

Calling for action: Chong (seated, second from left) with Lee (Chong’s left) with the six property agents during the press conference. — LOW LAY PHON/The Star

KUALA LUMPUR: Scammers have now ventured into new territory, posing as property agents to dupe unsuspecting renters in the Klang Valley out of thousands of ringgit, with 10 cases reported so far.

Apart from using the profile pictures of legitimate agents and copying their verification numbers on property sites, the scammers even conduct viewing sessions for clients and later collect rental deposits before going missing when the key handover is due.

Victor Lee, a spokesman representing six property agents whose profiles were duplicated by scammers to create identical accounts on a property site to dupe the public, said they only came to know of this after being alerted by their company.

“However, we were not aware of these transactions taking place using our names. Only after it happened did we realise that there were impostors,” Lee told a press conference held by MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong here yesterday.

He said checks on the property site would find two accounts of the same agent, with one being fake.

“The contact number on the impostor account also redirects to a private number (which is not ours). Listed property prices in the impostors’ accounts are also lower than market rates to attract clients,” he said.

On viewing sessions conducted by the “agents”, Lee said he suspected the impostors rented the property through online rental sites, thus giving them access.

The scammers, he said, would then collect a three-and-a-half month rental deposit upfront, when the norm is that only one month’s advance rental is collected if the client agrees to the unit.

“The balance is usually paid when the unit is handed over to the tenant,” he said.

He said the deposits were also banked into an account number provided by the “agent” and once the transaction was made, the scammer would immediately block the mobile number of the client.

Meanwhile, Chong said losses from the scam amounted to about RM6,000 per case with approximately 10 cases reported so far.

Most of the scam victims are local and foreign students, he said.

“We want to warn the public about this type of scam and ask them to beware of the mobile numbers used in these cases,” he said, adding that he also suspected the scammers could be property agents themselves as they were well versed in rental procedures.

Chong said they would also hold dialogues with real estate associations to alert them on the matter.

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Syndicate using names of real estate agents

Expert calls for NSRC overhaul as millions lost to scammers posing as NSRC officials

 

WASPADA PANGGILAN DARIPADA NSRC - Laman Web MKN

PETALING JAYA: There is a need to look at the current staffing and ability of the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC), which is unable to handle the scams that are happening, says cybersecurity law expert Derek John Fernandez.

Although there is presently a hotline for scammed victims to report to NSRC, the staff members are not trained enough and the hotline is not active all the time, the lawyer pointed out.

“For now, there is only a handful of borrowed civil staff manning NSRC’s 997 hotline and it is not on round the clock, all year round.

“On top of that, those who take the calls are not adequately trained to diagnose these cases and as scams take place almost instantly due to advanced technology, speed is of much necessity in stopping a scammer. 

“It should be a 24-hour hotline run by trained personnel at the call centre with the right amount of budget and resources.

“Without this, NSRC cannot fulfil its mandate as the national scam response centre,” said Fernandez, who is also a Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) commissioner.

He feels that there is much to be done to strengthen NSRC and coordinate its four main components – the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM), Bank Negara, MCMC and National Anti-Financial Crime Centre (NFCC) – to enable it to function more effectively as a one-stop anti-scam centre.

“The policies of NSRC must be pushed to reduce scam risks. My view is that the agency now has insufficient resources to carry out a full service to cover all complaints of scams.

“On top of that, it also lacks staff to conduct proper diagnoses of attempted scams,” he said.

Fernandez said that if NSRC is to function as a one-stop centre for all scam responses, the government must provide it with more funds and the latest technology.

“The agency head and staff members must also be given more command and control to be able to stop scammers,” he said.

He called on the four main components of NSRC as well as financial institutions to play their part in training the staff members.

“There must be clear and defined mandates, powers and financing of the centre,” said Fernandez.

Meanwhile, the Alliance for Safe Community chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye called for the government to equip the NSRC with the latest technologies to fight cybercrime as well as to update any obsolete cyber laws.

“In our fight against scamners, it is necessary to make full use of the NSRC but to do so the government must equip NSRC with the latest technologies.

“Online scamming has become such a serious issue that most of the criminal activities by scammers are online.

“We need to employ the latest technologies. We must utilise NSRC to deal with public complaints.

“We need to look at the expertise needed, albeit foreign expertise if need be,” said Lee.

He said that it is sad that although NSRC is already a year old, it has yet to be the one stop anti scam centre it was supposed to be.

“The authorities should revisit NSRC and ensure that more work is done to beef up the centre. It must involve all the four relevant components of the NSRC.

“I hope the authorities will make sure the centre is not only to solve scams but is also a prevention agency to stop more scams from happening.

“The government should also study the current cyber laws and amend them to ensure our cybersecurity legislation is updated to ensure we will win in our fight against cybercrime,” said Lee.

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TRUE OR NOT 

QuickCheck: Have scammers started impersonating NSRC...

NATION 17 Jun 2024

Plans to fortify anti-scam centre

 Millions lost to scammers posing as NSRC officials

KUALA LUMPUR: Scammers impersonating National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) personnel have already duped 60 people this year, resulting in RM7.6mil worth of losses, says Comm Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf.

The Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) director said the victims would receive calls from someone claiming to be from the NSRC, who would then tell them that their phone number was linked to a scam report and might be cancelled.

“The call will then be transferred to another person, posing as a police officer.

“They will be told to follow every instruction until they eventually transfer funds to an account,” he said when contacted. 

Comm Ramli emphasised that NSRC operates solely as a one-way communications centre for reporting scams.

“NSRC officers will not call anyone and if you receive any calls claiming to be from the centre, it is definitely a scam.

“I also hope the public will make use of the SemakMule portal to check and verify bank accounts before making transactions,” he said.

The police have opened 60 investigations into such cases, involving RM7.6mil in losses, as of June 15, Comm Ramli said.

“One of the latest cases involves a 70-year-old retired factory worker in Johor who lost RM584,000 of his life savings after he received a call from scammers posing as NSRC officers,” he added.

On another matter, Comm Ramli said there were reported losses of RM1.07bil from 14,846 commercial cases in the first 24 weeks of the year.

“We recorded an average of 88 cases daily,” he said.

He added that the number of cases had increased slightly from the 14,798 cases that were recorded in the corresponding period last year.

“However, the amount of losses has spiked by about 27% as the cases resulted in RM843mil in losses last year,” he said.

He added that the CCID is confident in dealing with the huge number of cases, as it has seen an increase in successful prosecutions.

“A total of 7,018 investigation papers led to successful prosecutions this year compared with the same period last year when 6,219 prosecutions were recorded,” he said.

Comm Ramli reminded the public to be more vigilant.

“Help us spread commercial crime prevention messages. Let us work together to create a safer environment, free from commercial crime,” he said.

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