Man Loses Thousands To Scammer Who Managed To Transfer Money Without OTP Authorisation
The man had ignored the scammer's repeated requests to send over the OTP before his money started being transferred out of his account.
By Samantha Khor — 30 Sep 2019, 06:45 PM
A man in Sarawak is warning Malaysians about a new scam tactic, having lost thousands of ringgit to a scammer who managed to access his account and transfer money without One-Time Password (OTP) authorisation
In a post that has been shared over 38,000 times on Facebook, Jonathan Sidi recalled that he had ignored phone calls as well as several WhatsApp messages on the day of the incident.
The scammer had requested for OTP numbers, saying that his "wife" sent the code to the wrong number
At the same time, Jonathan received several SMS messages containing OTPs to authorise money transfers and authenticate new devices.
"I knew he was probably a scammer, so I did not give him any of the OTPs," Jonathan wrote, adding that the scammer also sent him photos and videos of his IC and bank account number as "proof".
To his surprise, he received an SMS an hour later, saying that money was successfully transferred to an account in his 'Favourites' list
"I called the Customer Service hotline. They confirmed that the money was successfully transferred to one of the accounts in my Favourites list and I only had RM41.35 left in my account. The scammer had withdrawn several thousand ringgit from my account," he wrote.
Customer Service proceeded to block his card and online banking transactions, and advised Jonathan to file a police report.
"I also blocked [the scammer's number] on WhatsApp. Unfortunately, our conversation on WhatsApp, the photo of his IC, and the video of his bank account was deleted in the process," he lamented.
While filing his report, police told Jonathan to contact the owner of the bank account who received his money. Alas, the latter fell victim to the scammer.
Using a different phone number (but with the same profile picture), the scammer contacted the owner of said bank account and said that his wife had transferred money to the wrong account. Upon confirmation from the bank account owner, the scammer then requested for the money to be transferred back.
Although the scammer provided a different bank account number, the bank account owner transferred the money in a panic, as the scammer threatened to file a police report if they did not do so.
Jonathan noted that the police have received five reports of similar scams from all over the country since the beginning of September
"The scammer's modus operandi is to ask for OTP to authorise a new device or an error in making transactions," Jonathan wrote.
"The scammer will transfer money to an account in the victim's Favourites list, then threaten the owner of that bank account to transfer the money to another account."
According to the police, the overall amount of money that has been lost to the scammer currently stands at over RM63,000.
In a similar incident that also happened recently, Facebook user Rex Xin warned Malaysians about a scammer who tried threatening her father into "returning" money to his account
Similar to Jonathan's case, the scammer requested for OTPs and then resorted to threats when Rex Xin's father refused to do so.
"The scammer told my father that the money in his account will be taken out if he does not send over the OTPs. They kept calling and sending messages to him, and then he received SMSes saying money from his account has been transferred out," she wrote.
Thankfully, they managed to contact the bank's hotline and found out that the money - which amounted to RM4,700 - had been bizarrely transferred to his personal loan financing account
"Their tactic is to transfer money to another account related to yours, saying that the money will be gone forever if you do not give them the OTP. Then they expect you to panic and give them the OTP," she wrote.
She further suggested, "What's even more suspicious is that this is something only bank insiders can do."
You can read her full post here:
