HOAX / DUPE / DECEIVE / TRICK / CHEAT / CON / SWINDLE

This is the most popular way to 'earn' money these days so be extremely careful and alert. The economy is going to get worse and so we expect more conmen / conwomen to appear with all kinds of strategies known on earth to steal your money. I have heard enough cheating of other people's money, especially the old folks. These cheaters will normally imitate as some powerful authorities like court officers, police, bank officers, insurance agents, salesmen or some higher authorities in the government who said you need to pay a certain amount of money to get you out of some trouble or court case or offering you some dodgy deals, prizes, free gifts or passwords for your Internet Banking accounts because of faulty errors / updating accounts / virus attacks (all kinds of excuses). They will give you your full name and identification card number to make it clear that they are 'real'. Please be more alert especially in protecting the old folks of your family so they won't be conned. In Singapore, another famous syndicate deals with calling you to get ransom for kidnapping your family members or relatives. Do double check before doing bank transfers, not to believe everything they say.

These people normally use phone calls, emails and SMS to con the potential victims. The SMSes can claim themselves to be from some very big company to assure you that sending personal information to them is fine. The emails from these companies look so real that they even have the same logo or even sites with believable URLs or the ability to automatically link you to their fake sites which look identical to your bank sites. I am sure you are also increasingly getting tonnes of rubbish phone calls and short messages that either say you need to bank in money or pay money to get yourself the attractive prices you won, the attractive products or services (some healing power stones for example) they offer or get yourself out of some trouble with the higher authorities (they probably claimed you did something bad and was caught in the act). Please double check before you do any stupid things like transferring money to their bank accounts. There is even a syndicate I heard which recruits these young men to go out and cheat your money. Even if they are caught, they don't mind sitting in the jail for 7 years. They are paid to do the job and they are willing to spend 7 years behind bars while you get nothing back.

I know a 56 years old lady friend in Johor Bahru who got conned RM350,000 here by the youngsters who imitate as court officers who assured her with her full name and identification number that they can 'solve' her court case but she needs to bank in some money to settle the matter. The terrified lady did the bank transfer hastily without second thoughts because of fear as they are good at playing with your emotions. Now, the poor lady has tremendous depression, can not sleep well, always in nervous mode and does not believe in anyone. Eventhough two of the three conmen are caught, the big possibility is she will not get a single cent back and they will mostly just need to sit in jail to settle it. They are in their 20s so it will just be 30s when they come out of jail which is fine with them.

Stay vigilant, especially for your loved ones!