00:00Malaysians who have fallen victim to scams are being warned about a new type of fraud,
00:08self-styled anti-scam law firms that promise unusually high recovery rates,
00:13but end up scamming victims again.
00:16MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head, Datuk Sri Michael Chong,
00:21said his office has received complaints about online ads from supposed law firms
00:25claiming over a 90% success rate in recovering scam losses.
00:30A figure he called both implausible and misleading.
00:33During a press conference on Monday, he said those offers are essentially scammers scamming scam victims.
00:40His department has recorded two such cases so far.
00:43In the first case, a woman trying to recover 1,500 ringgit lost to a scam ended up losing 1.2 million ringgit.
00:53In a more recent case, a man who had lost 390,000 ringgit to a scam
00:58was defrauded of an additional 33,000 ringgit after engaging what he thought was a legal firm.
01:04I've been here dealing with all this scam, all this online scam.
01:08I want to tell you my success of getting back the money for the victim is zero.
01:13Zero. Zero. So now people can stand up with 95%, 90%. Please, think it will work.
01:21Senior lawyer Tanshri Mohammed Shafi Abdullah, also present at the press conference,
01:26said the ads appear designed to lure specific communities, particularly Chinese victims.
01:31Our legal firm conducts financial investigations and assists with recovery.
01:36This is a typical way of hooking the Chinese community.
01:41Because 95% is no joke. You're going to recover.
01:45So it is aimed to excite you.
01:49This is what they call in advertising, the hooking method, like fishing.
01:54They hook you with an interesting story, and then once you are deep in it, they go for you.
02:01And then they wipe you off completely.
02:03They seem to evolve from one name to the other,
02:06but we suspect they are all the same people behind these entities.
02:13Shafi questioned the legitimacy of the firms, pointing to inconsistencies in their claims.
02:19Though they present themselves as cross-border operators, the ads prominently request payments in ringgit,
02:26a strong indication that the scams are Malaysian-based and targeting local victims.
02:31Why ringgit? That means you are here.
02:34Because ringgit is not especially the most traded currency.
02:39So we suspect this is a local operation trying to scam local people.
02:45He also noted that legal advertising in Malaysia is strictly regulated under the legal profession,
02:51Publicity Rules 2001, which prohibit unauthorised or misleading publicity.
02:57From what we have seen, it does not look like a bona fide advertisement.
03:04It looks like something of a scam.
03:07We hope we are wrong.
03:10But so far, our inquiry leads us to believe that quite conclusively.
03:16Checks by The Star on Monday revealed that some of the social media ads highlighted by Chong and Shafi
03:21were still visible on Facebook.
03:23Checks by The Star on Monday revealed that some of the activities have been verified at the same time,
03:38so it looks like a text, though.
03:40Checks by The Star on Monday revealed that some of the three organizations may have been found and confirmed no matter what we do.
03:42So we'll be sure that some of the details are made of the following.
03:44So we expect that the implants are unauthorized or a controversial choice in the process of a European system.
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