JOHOR BARU: A 29-year-old single mother wanted to borrow RM8,000, but ended up losing triple the amount when she was conned by a bogus moneylender.
The woman, who wanted to be known only as Peng, said she contacted a money-lending service provider after seeing his attractive loan offerings with low interest rates.
“I wanted to borrow money to pay for my monthly house loan installments, which had defaulted by two months. There were also electricity and water bills to be paid.
“I was short on money and needed about RM3,000 to settle the bills,” said the mother of a 9-year-old boy.
Peng, who works in the sales and marketing unit of a company in Mount Austin here, said she did not realise that the moneylender, known only as Long, had given her empty promises and cheated her entire life savings.
“I have not met this guy. We spoke only through the phone.
“He told me to provide the documents required for my loan application, such as a copy of my MyKad, copies of utility bills, as well as photos of my house and car. I submitted all these via a social media app,” Peng told MCA Public Service and Complaint Bureau national chairman Datuk Jason Teoh at the South Chinese Press club house here today.
She said Long later told her that her application had problems due to incomplete documentation and instructed her to transfer RM1,000 to him to “secure” an approval for the loan processing.
“Thinking that it was a normal procedure, I transferred the amount to him. Then, he asked me to make more payments, which amounted to a total of RM24,000, in the next 10 days since Sept 3.”
Peng said she borrowed the money from her mother, as well as relatives, as she was confident of getting a loan from Long after completing the transactions.
Teoh cautioned those who wanted to borrow money from a moneylender to do a background check on the company providing the services to ascertain if it was a legitimate business.
“Many people have fallen victim to similar cases. The modus operandi in this type of scam is to have a con man pretending to be the middle man between the borrower and the money-lender. In truth, the con man is just telling lies and making empty promises so that his victims will do his bidding with no questions asked,” he said.
He added that in many of the cases he had handled, victims acted on their own without telling anyone, including their family members, that they were having financial problems.
“These cases could be avoided if the victims open up in the first place and seek help from their family members instead of complete strangers.”