Crime & Courts

'Set up one-stop centre to handle online banking theft cases'

ALOR STAR: "RM2,000 suddenly disappeared from my husband's account. The money was meant for our household expenses, including for the children's formula milk and disposable diapers. The bank said it would take 45 days to resolve the matter."

This was the nightmare endured by housewife Fadzilah Kassim (not her real name) when her husband suffered an unauthorised withdrawal from his bank account.

Her experience is just one of many that show how cybercriminals not only target the rich, but also those struggling to make ends meet.

"This is frustrating. Although this type of crime has been occurring for years, it appears that our system is powerless to stop it," said Consumers Association of Kedah (Cake) president Muhammad Yusrizal Yusoff.

He pointed out that in this digital age, it was unacceptable that a victim's complaint would only be resolved in 45 days.

"The current standard period to resolve consumers' complaints has been set at 14 days. It is unbelievable that some banks still have this 45-day response time period," he told the New Straits Times.

He said there had been cases where depositors' funds disappeared from their accounts and were transferred to third-party accounts.

"Upon checking, the banks confirmed that the transactions were legitimate and the customers were told that they could not file a claim."

Yusrizal called for the setting up of a one-stop centre comprising government agencies, banks and Bank Negara Malaysia to resolve such cases.

"The problem is that government agencies or banks claim to have limited authority to manage the complaints.

"The victims are referred from one party to another. Many get frustrated and decide to stop fighting for justice.

"Cake believes that we need a one-stop centre to handle financial scams and theft cases to speed up action and refund affected victims."

Criminal analyst Kamal Affandi Hashim concurred, saying the key issue is to help victims recover their stolen money.

"The process should be made easier, but sadly, the victims are being referred from one agency to another," he said.

Kamal noted that a bank was a trust institution. People, he said, deposited their money in banks because they had faith in the banks' safety.

"But once banks practise plausible deniability or lessen their responsibility to protect the customers' deposits, public perception of banks as trustworthy institutions also declines."

Kamal suggested that the authorities and banks explored ways to enhance protection for consumers against cybercrimes.

"Perhaps it is time for the banks to work with insurance companies to offer personal insurance protection for individual accounts.

"This is similar to the role of Perbadanan Insurans Deposit Malaysia (PIDM), which provides guarantees of up to RM250,000 for account holders in the event that the bank experiences a problem."

Cases of online banking fraud came to the fore recently when nephrologist Dr Rafidah Abdullah lost RM13,000 from her bank account through three unauthorised CIMB Clicks transactions on Aug 19.

She claimed that the transactions had occurred although she did not receive any Transaction Authorisation Code (TAC).

She said that she reported the matter to CIMB, the police and other organisations, and was informed that the money would not be recovered once the scammer had taken it out.

Last month, a trader in Melaka lost RM4,700 from her bank account when she downloaded an Android Package Kit (.APK) file to book cleaning services that were advertised on Facebook.

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