In addition to widespread media coverage, it is also hoped that the police, along with our newly appointed “anti-scam ambassadors,” will work together to uproot online scamming.

The scam data of Malaysia could be frightening!

In 2021, a total of 49,543 reports were filed at a daily average of 136 cases, involving a total loss sum of RM1.921 billion or RM5.26 million a day.

33,577 cases have been reported during the first eight months of this year at an average of 140 a day, involving a sum of RM1.465 billion or RM6.1 million a day.

And the above figures have not included unreported cases, including minor ones and embarrassing love scams which largely go unreported.

The number of media reports on scams has been mind-boggling but even that would not help deter potential victims from voluntarily falling into the traps set up by the syndicates.

Perhaps these people rarely read the newspaper or watch TV news, as our ambassador in Phnom Penh Eldeen Husaini Mohd Hashim  pointed out during a recent interview with Sin Chew Daily.

It has been reported that a job scam victim’s family member has told the media that another 50 Malaysians just arrived in Myanmar on Monday evening, while in Taiwan, the police have displayed notices at the main airport cautioning passengers to Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia against job scams in hope of stopping Taiwanese from falling into their traps.

News of “modern slaves” from Malaysia has made newspaper headlines in recent months, but unfortunately many young people in smaller towns have never heard of such things, believing that those telephone or online job scams that happen here on a daily basis are avenues for them to make some quick bucks.

The false perception of some people could make them potential partners in crime. When we no longer can look to people around us for genuine advice, we have no choice but to leave our eyes and ears widely open in order to access the most updated information from more reliable sources.

There’s no free lunch in this world, and we have to be constantly vigilant in order not to fall prey to the scammers.

We believe the police, politicians and the mass media have done their utmost in educating the public. But sadly, many young people still prefer to gain information through inappropriate channels, rendering all our effort in vain.

It is because of this that we have seen a 16% jump in the daily loss amount to RM6.1 million from RM5.26 million last year. The scam “growth rate” easily shames our annual GDP growth of 3.4% last year!

As it is at times hard to spread the right information among the people, we have almost run of ideas how to stop the omnipresent scamming.

In view of this, the police have on Tuesday appointed a total of 104 “anti-scam ambassadors” that include key opinion leaders (KOLs) from entertainment, business, police, badminton sports and other sectors, to help spread the message against scamming on social media.

We should see some positive results if opinion leaders with good personal image and with massive following on social media such as Lee Chong Wei, Goh Liu Ying, Lee Zii Jia, Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik, would help spread the message through the right channels.

We would like to urge the police to continue enlisting the help of more opinion leaders who have projected positive personal image and boast huge following on social media, so that more people will be able to receive the right information on online scams.

Now that we have so much to expect from these “anti-scam ambassadors,” it is our hope that those in power will help update these ambassadors with the latest information which can be easily understood by the public and would hopefully trigger heated discussions on the cyberspace.

Such information is preferably conveyed in different languages to allow a much bigger segment of the Malaysian society to read and understand it.

It is not easy to stop scamming, but we simply cannot bear to see so many young Malaysians lose their precious lives in a foreign land or have their hard earned savings cheated away.

In addition to widespread media coverage, it is also hoped that the police, along with our newly appointed “anti-scam ambassadors,” will work together to uproot online scamming.