Scammers!
This week, three Telcowinners received text messages from “Gov”. All three employees took it for granted that the text was sent by the government, especially since the text read, “Bantuan Khas Kewangan COVID-19 telah kredit ke TNG eWallet anda. Sila semak baki dan tuntutan anda di ——.”
Yes, you guessed correct. The link was a phishing site and all three employees fell hook, line and sinker. After realising their mistake, all three scrambled to change their passwords for various apps on their mobile phones. Luckily nobody lost any money.
Scammers are truly becoming more and more creative and resourceful. There was no way to see who the text was truly from as it simply said “Gov”. Exactly the same way the government sends text messages to disseminate information on current events and such. Upon closer inspection, we found that the language wasn’t exactly grammatically correct – telah kredit – and the link given ended with .life.
We often think that people who fall for scams are ignorant but the truth is, in this day and age, pretty much anyone can become a victim. Telcowin’s in house Legal Counsel Nadia Zaini says scammers who operate through phone calls use voice generated prompts. We all know those. They usually start with a high pitched female voice saying “Ini amaran terakhir.” Or “Ini panggilan dari Mahkamah Tinggi Kuala Lumpur.” Followed by “Tekan satu untuk bercakap dengan operator kami.”
These ones are relatively easy to identify. However, is it possible that the Malaysian High Court might actually make a phone call to Malaysian citizens? Nadia says it is highly unlikely as even practicing lawyers who call the Malaysian High Court rarely ever get through to an operator. A good tip is to stay calm through these phone calls and run a quick research.
If by chance the caller claims to be from an organisation, you can Google said organisation and search for the individual under their directory. In some cases, Nadia says these organisations do not even exist, like the time scammers used to claim they were from Mahkamah Nilai, when in fact, there is no courthouse in Nilai.
Another highly popular scam is via cryptocurrency. The rule of thumb is, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. There is no possible way of investing a small amount of money and becoming a millionaire in one year. Unfortunately many people fall for this only to discover their “agent” has disappeared into thin air within weeks of receiving money from them.
There are several ways to safeguard yourself against scammers. To begin with, use password managers for your mobile phone and computer. These apps and websites generate strong passwords for all your accounts. Next, use incognito mode when surfing your banking sites on your mobile phone. Finally, to automatically screen spam callers, get a caller id app such as Truecaller. These apps can identify a spam call from their database generated from community input.
In this week’s podcast, Nadia Zaini shares many more beneficial tips on how to protect your personal data and outsmart scammers before they even get to you. Tune in via Spotify now by clicking this link https://podcasts.telcowin.com