KOTA KINABALU (ANN/THE STAR) – Sabah witnessed over 1,000 cases of scams and cheating from January to November this year, resulting in losses totalling tens of millions of ringgit.
Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Jauteh Dikun attributes the continued victimisation to panic and greed, despite numerous awareness campaigns and reminders by the authorities.
He added that people with high-paying jobs were also among the victims, reflecting how a person’s attitude led them to be duped.
“There are (victims) in high positions as well as lower ranks, (scammers) do not choose their victims,” he said after a town hall and road safety carnival on Thursday.
He added that some victims became panicky when they received calls from scammers, and secondly because of greed.
“Because they want to have more, some people are willing to fork out a lot of money (unknowingly) to scammers before it (money) all vanishes,” he added.
The event was jointly organised by the Sabah Police contingent, Putatan parliamentary office and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).
Also present were Deputy Chief Minister III and Putatan MP Datuk Shahelmey Yahya and UMS vice-chancellor Professor Dr Kasim Md Mansur.
Besides criminal activities by scammers, the town hall also touched on drug abuse, particularly among students.
Earlier, Commissioner Jauteh disclosed that many have become victims of online scams offering part-time jobs to earn an income.
He said 43 such cases have been reported in the state this year, involving losses of some MYR836,000, compared to 36 cases last year with losses of MYR904,000.
“The victims usually have money as they are already working, but because of greed, they want more income. When offered lucrative returns through part-time online jobs, they will get easily scammed,” he said.
Commissioner Jauteh said scams will continue to rise if people let their guard down.
“That is why we continue to implement programmes like today’s to constantly remind and spread information to the public to always be careful of calls of which they do not know who the callers are.
“What is important is that we must be prepared to face the effects or technological application that keeps getting advanced, which scammers will manipulate,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Kasim said university students have also fallen prey to scammers, especially to offers on rental houses that did not exist.
He said UMS students had become victims of such scams, paying deposits but not establishing if the rental homes existed.
Towards this end, Shahelmey said the government continuously works with relevant agencies to curb scams and drug abuse.
