Another Pathetic Moron!

Hantu Laut

Don't they read how many times such scams have been publicised in the newspaper.

What is wrong with these people? I can only conclude it is greed coupled with stupidity.

Reported in the Daily Express:

Labuan: A 34-year-old self-employed Chinese is the island's latest victim of a syndicate-operated Internet scam.

A "convincing story" which came through the email resulted in the victim losing RM420,100.

Labuan Police Chief, Supt. Saiman Kasran, said: "When the victim received the email on Oct 9 from a woman named Lyanna Adin (believed to be fictitious) informing the victim that a 29kg parcel stuffed with expensive items such as a gold watch, cash, laptop and cell phone was delivered to the victim from UK, the victim without hesitation replied the email with his personal details such as MyKad number, home address and cell phone number."

The next day, Saiman said, the victim received another call from a private number with the caller identifying himself as "Robert Jestkins" from air courier company informing the victim of the parcel and the need to pay RM3,800 as penalty that the parcel was overweight.

The victim was further asked to pay RM18,700 to the Customs Department to have the parcel released and also RM48,000 twice for the first and second stamp charges and penalty to Bank Negara.

The victim, still not suspecting anything amiss, dutifully carried out all the instructions and banked in the requested amounts into several accounts provided by the caller.

Following this, the victim was introduced to a so-called UK embassy staff.

On Oct 18, Lyanna contacted the victim again and requested him to visit a website.

Upon checking the site, the victim noted that 57,000 pound sterling would be transferred to the victim's Maybank account, but the victim was required to pay another RM147,800 for insurance and other charges.

Saiman said the total amount paid by the victim for the parcel was RM420,100 via 15 transfers from Maybank.

But the parcel never came and neither could he contact anyone of them who had communicated with him about the parcel and payments.

Following this, a police report was lodged.

Saiman advised that with so many cases of Internet scam, the people should be smarter and not be credulous to fall for "easy money."

He said there is no such thing as easy money.

In Labuan alone this year, there had been 17 reported cases with losses incurred reaching RM736,849.63 and most of the victims were women.

The victims parted their money over offers that came through email and Facebook, mostly pertaining to products, auctions and parcels.