Fraud victims cry foul over Internet banking

A leading local bank in Kota Kinabalu and another on the outskirts of Inanam are stumped that an undisclosed number of customers have lost their monies mysteriously from their ATM accounts with them.

The banks concerned claim that they are still investigating together with the police. Bank Negara Malaysia has also been brought into the picture.

The victims suspect that nothing will come out of their complaints. Three of them have gone public with their story to warn others and put pressure on the banks, the police and Bank Negara “to speed up their investigations”. In two cases, in Karamunsing and Penampang involving the same bank, the local media published the name of the bank involved.

Inanam is still within the Kota Kinabalu city limits like Penampang. The Karamunsing branch is close to the heart of the city, a stone’s throw from the city police headquarters.

In the latest case, involving the bank that has been named in the local media, a housewife is baffled that RM20,000 went missing from her ATM account via the Internet although she has no e-banking facilities.

The victim, who gave her name as Jane Ranjah, found her money missing when she checked her bank balance at the Karamunsing branch on June 8. Apparently, the bank’s recovery section in Kuala Lumpur subsequently advised her that three online transfers had been made from the account a day earlier, June 7, to siphon the funds.

According to the details of the advisory note from the bank, RM5,000 was transferred to the account of another customer with the same bank, RM5,002 into the account of a person at another local bank and the remainder was transferred overseas to an unnamed account.

Hard-earned money

The bank also informed Jane that, according to its records, she had applied for a PIN (Personal Identification Number) to operate e-banking facilities. She denies having done so.

“The contact number to which the PIN was attached does not belong to me,” said Jane. “I suspect that my personal details were misused by someone or some people. The loss of such a large amount is difficult to accept.”

Jane expressed dismay that she had lost her hard-earned money which she thought was safe with the bank. She wonders where she can keep her money in future if banks are no longer safe.

The parties concerned, she urged, should step up their investigations into her case and bring it to an early end. She suspects that she’s being given the run-around by the bank, the police and Bank Negara at a time when she most needs her money.

A Bank Negara spokeswoman here said that Jane’s complaint had been referred to the bank concerned for its attention.

“We have yet to receive a response from the bank as to how this could have happened,” said the spokeswoman. “We can act on our own, and against the bank as well, if the bank does not respond within a month.”

The bank’s regional headquarters here said the matter had been referred to the relevant sections at its headquarters in KL. “We are still awaiting instructions from them on how to proceed on the case,” said a spokesman.

The spokesman confirmed that Jane’s case was being handled together with a similar case of a customer at the bank’s Penampang branch. The case, highlighted earlier in the local media, involves the alleged transfer of RM1,000 from the customer’s savings account to an account in Indonesia. No other details were available.

Transaction code

In the case involving another local bank, Radio Televisyen Malaysia staff Mohamad Suhaimie Jamli found RM2,102 missing from his Internet account when he checked it at his workplace on April 26.

“I wanted to check on my salary balance but found that RM2,102 had been transferred,” said Suhaimie. “Now, I have only RM50 in my account.”

According to him, the two transfers were made from his account. The first was at 11.01am on April 26 and the second at 11.03am the same day. He claimed that he was attending a meeting at that time.

“Usually, when I do a transaction, the bank will send a transaction code via text message,” said Suhaimie. “In this case, the money was transferred out without any transaction code being sent out.”

He said that his bank confirmed on April 29 that his money had been transferred to the account of another individual at a different bank. The money was later transferred to a third account belonging to the same individual but at a third bank.

However, his bank could not recover his money since it had already been withdrawn from the third account.

The case has been ignored by the police, according to the victim, who also ran into another brick wall at Bank Negara, where he tried to lodge another complaint on his missing money.

“I have been asked by both the police and Bank Negara to produce a justification letter from the bank and another from my employer verifying my status,” said Suhaimie. “I tried to speak to the bank but it said the manager was too busy to talk to me.”

A staff member of the bank, according to him, also advised him that there would be no refund in his case “since they couldn’t do anything about it”.

Suhaimie’s bank, when contacted, said the alleged illegal transaction of fund is currently the subject of a police investigation “and therefore it did not wish to comment further on the matter”. “The bank will extend its full co-operation to the relevant authorities,” said a spokesman.

City police chief ACP Ahmad Sofi Zakaria was not immediately available for comments.

However, State commercial investigation officer-in-charge, Supt Soh Hock Sing, confirmed that in another case police had arrested five people who had fleeced a 47-year-old housewife here of RM1.2 million through the Internet beginning June 5. The money belonged to the victim, her husband, mother, sister and niece.

The five, including four foreigners and a local woman aged 37, from Seremban, was due to be charged in court in Seremban last Friday. The four foreigners, all men with student visas, are aged between 24 and 35.

The woman, in whose account some of the money was deposited, will be charged under Section 413 of the Penal Code for habitually receiving stolen properties, according to Soh.

courtesy of FMT