KUALA LUMPUR: A house cleansing service at a less expensive rate along with the promise of sanitation for the complete home prompted a lady in Shah Alam to achieve out to a web based cleansing service, especially as her members of the family were infected with the Covid-19.
Talking to Bernama, Hariyati Arifin, 61, said in last week’s incident, she spotted an commercial for the ‘Easymaid’ service on Facebook without realising it was a clone of the actual service application, Maideasy.
This was her first experience coping with a scammer and he or she totally unexpected it as she knew there are legitimate applications reminiscent of Maideasy, Grabmaid and a number of other other applications and her contacts also shared positive experiences using such services.
“I got here across the ‘service’ on Facebook and was intrigued by the set price, then clicked on the commercial before being taken to the WhatsApp application. Then, I got in contact with a person who introduced himself as Alex.
“Alex communicated well in Malay and English which didn’t raise any alarms. He also told me that he understands the present economy and offers a less expensive charge rate of RM16 per hour and RM30 for 2 hours including sanitation,” recalled Hariyati as she was comparing the prices for a similar service provided by Indonesian women in her residential area is at RM30 per hour.
Alex then sent her a link, but as a consequence of lack of skill, Hariyati asked her son’s help to make a reservation with an advance payment on the Maybank2u application of RM20 as Alex taught through a phone call.
“Alex promised the maid would come the following morning. Coincidentally, that night my son had read several cases of online maid fraud on social media. As we began to feel uneasy, we then checked my checking account and located that 1000’s of ringgit had disappeared without receiving any notification,” she said.
Hariyati said a police report was lodged on the Seksyen 6 police station in Shah Alam and Maybank informed her that as many as three transactions had been made inside an hour on the night of the incident.
Confirming the report lodged by Hariyati, Shah Alam district police chief ACP Mohd Iqbal Ibrahim, when contacted by Bernama, said as many as 4 reports had been received related to cleansing services throughout this yr and advised the general public to be more careful as this was certainly one of the most recent tactics of the scammers.
“Scammers use phishing methods by creating fake web sites and links before asking the victim to make a payment online. The appliance (cleansing service clone) has malware that may steal the victim’s bank ID and password information,” he said.
Not denying that scam syndicates at the moment are getting more creative, crime analyst Kamal Affandi Hashim warned the general public against being easily duped, especially when techniques reminiscent of deception, spoofing and phishing have gotten more common today.
“It is similar with this scam involving cleansing service when the payment has been made however the service shouldn’t be provided after which can’t be traced,“ he said.
Subsequently, with a view to avoid becoming a victim, he beneficial the general public to envision the checking account and phone number provided first on the Semak Mule application by the Royal Malaysia Police before making any transactions.
“The general public, especially users, are advised to make use of this Semak Mule as a method to detect scammers by checking the account number or phone number given to see if there are a lot of reports.
“Secondly, it’s also advised to envision the corporate’s website. If he has an organization, after all, he has an internet site. So, that is the steps that all of us should do,” he said.
Recently, through postings on its Instagram and Facebook accounts, the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (KPDNHEP) advised the general public to watch out and never turn out to be a victim of cleansing service scams by listing eight applications which might be suspected of being involved in scam activities.
Nonetheless, Grabmaid and Maideasy, that are also listed by KPDNHEP within the post, have issued a denial within the comment section and stated that police reports had been lodged against a clone application that imitates their brands. – Bernama
