We must laud the government for drafting a law to make banks accountable for their role in online scams. About time. Banks and other financial institutions have been getting away with it for far too long.
Sure, they can't be asked to bear the loss for every scam that happens to their customers. But where banks' negligence is at play, they must be answerable for the loss.
Internet platforms that play host to these scammers must also be made to shoulder responsibility for the loss.
Malaysia may be too small to force this on Big Tech by itself. It may go the way of media companies' efforts to make the platforms pay for the use of their news.
There is an alternative. Putrajaya must work with like-minded countries to get scammers off their websites.
In the meantime, we must ask the overwhelming question: why do so many Malaysians rush to lose their hard-earned money so easily? From the retired teacher's RM1 million — saved over 30 years — to the businessman's RM5 million, a typical Malaysian story is in the making.
Between 2020 and last year, RM3.2 billion was lost to fraudsters of many stripes. We offer two reasons for the rush to lose.
First is a result of the victim's weaknesses. The second reason is tied to the first: the scammer's clever manipulation of the victim's weaknesses. Start with the victim's weaknesses.
We don't mean to suggest that those who don't fall prey to scams do not have weaknesses. We all do. All human beings, without exception, are a bundle of emotions. A human being without emotions is but a walking dead.
The trick lies in being able to manage them. The scammers know that some just can't tame their emotions. After all, they are humans, too, though ones with despicable traits.
Consider the desperation for quick financial gains, a common tale told by many Malaysian scam victims. There is no such thing as quick financial gains.
Some investment scams offer 100 per cent returns within hours! Even banks, with their huge stash of cash, can only afford to pay an interest of 2.5 per cent on fixed deposits. And that, too, for a minimum of one whole month. One hundred per cent returns can never be true because it is too good to be real. This the people must recognise.
There is yet another that the people must learn to recognise. There is a pattern to online scams: money in, some money back, more money in and none back.
Sure, permutations and sophistication have been added to this over the years since we last received emails from rich inheritors, who ironically needed our money to recoup theirs. But the pattern never changes: money, more money and no money.
Laws can help, of course. They can make banks exercise greater vigilance. But Malaysian laws don't have a global reach.
Global reach is only possible if governments and Internet companies work together to get the scammers off the cyberspace. But vigilance must also start with the people.
Given this age of sophisticated scams, due diligence is one living skill we all need. We may not be able to spot the master scammer, but at least we will be able to tell what exists from what doesn't.