You Can Check If An Online Seller Is Involved With Fraud Cases With This PDRM Portal
Online shoppers should also use it to check if they are an unsuspecting "money mule".
Having doubts about the online seller you are dealing with? Now you can just do a quick check on them with this Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) portal.
PDRM launched the portal in August 2017, but news about it went viral recently when PDRM's Cyber Crime Alert Facebook page posted about it.
The portal can be accessed by the public on the Commercial Crime Investigation Department's (CCID) website here.
Using just a bank account or phone number provided by the seller, shoppers can check if police reports have been lodged against the seller
"They can check if a bank account is reported to be involved in fraud. If the bank account has been used in fraud cases, this will be displayed in the search bar," said Federal CCID principal assistant director (cyber crime and multimedia investigations) Senior Asst Comm Ahmad Noordin Ismail to The Star.
A screenshot of the website after details have been keyed in.
Image via Cyber Crime Alert Royal Malaysia Police/FacebookBank account or phone numbers which have police reports lodged against them will have an "Amaran" appear at the bottom, along with the number of reports that have been lodged.
Former Bukit Aman CCID director CP Datuk Seri Amar Singh also encouraged Malaysians to use the portal to check if they have been targeted as "money mules"
Speaking to Free Malaysia Today, Amar defined money mules as "people who allow their bank accounts to be used by cyber criminals to facilitate the transfer of money from scam activities".
In some cases, money mules are offered part of the scammed money or some other reward, usually expensive items.
Victims of internet love scams can also become unsuspecting money mules.
