KLUANG: A floral decorator lost around RM12,000 after being duped by an offer for a home cleaning service she found on Facebook.
S. Sree Priya, 46, said said she came across an ad for the service offering home cleaning services at only RM30 for two hours.
On Dec 3, she reached out to the contact person, known only as Jason, who told her to visit the company's website and download an app. After filling in her personal details and paying a RM10 deposit, she would then qualify for the special rate to clean her Johor Bahru homestay property.
She suspected something amiss when on Saturday, she received a phone call from a bank at 2.10am.
"I thought it was suspicious so I didn't answer the call. I nevertheless felt I needed check my bank account through the bank app but I couldn't access it as it had been blocked.
"I quickly rang the bank hotline. I was then told that I had performed four transactions of RM2,999 each from 8.32am to 11.07pm," she said.
Sue said upon recollection, she realised that something went wrong with her mobile phone after using the cleaning company's app.
"The names of all my contacts on WhatSapp had disappeared, with only their profile pictures left. My family had told me not to worry about it as my phone was probably resetting itself, hence I didn't bother to check further," she said.
She also noticed that as she was paying the RM10 fee to the company, she was logged out of the company's app.
Kluang police chief, Assistant Commissioner Bahrin Mohd Noh, said the victim lodged a police report and the case is being investigated under Section 4(1) of the Computer Crimes Act.
He urged people to exercise caution and not to easily trust online ads, especially those which are too good to be true.
"There are many offers on social media which offer ridiculous prices. Please ensure that any app you download come from legitimate sources such as via the Google Play Store or Apple Store," he said.