The issue of internal romance scams is making Malaysia more famous for the wrong reasons. According to this Time article and Reuters, the main factors that make it easy for scammers, usually those from Nigeria or Ghana, are the lax student visa regulations and ease of opening bank accounts and making bank transfers online. These scammers not only target women in Malaysia, but also around the world, even all the way from the US and Europe.
As informed to me personally by the police inspector who is investigating my case, local colleges/universities create a haven for African scammers to come into the country under the guise of being 'students' as the only concern of these institutions is to make money. These scammers apply to study English at Malaysian local colleges and universities, when their primary language is English!
Telcos also add to the problem. Even though people applying for new sim cards are required to provide their personal information, scammers can easily give fake or even nonsensical information which the sim card sellers don't even bother to verify through the buyer's ID. The inspector showed me an example of a sim card buyer's registration info where the name was some jumbled rubbish along the lines of "AJXIWK". My question to the Telcos is why on earth do you even bother to ask this information if you can be bothered to ensure your sellers verify the information received??
The best part is our own Inspector -General of Police (IGP), Khalid Abu Bakar (not bothered to refer to this guy by his 'Tan Sri' title) is sticking his head in the sand by denying the report from Reuters that Malaysia is becoming a hub for such scams. Well sorry IGP, your own police personnel are telling me they receive tens to twenties of such scam reports a day, so what the heck is the basis of your denial?
My message to women everywhere, if you have been scammed by these unscrupulous bastards, it's understandably embarassing, but the best action you can take is share your story and get it out there as far and wide as you can so other will be aware and can avoid it. Keeping quiet helps no one except the scammers who will use the same tricks to victimize others because you were too shy to warn others. Keep sharing this message and my blog!
And finally to the scammers preying on the lovelorn ladies and taking advantage of their trust like you did to me, sorry to say, you've made me and a lot more people more racist and less trusting towards Africans. I'm sorry to the good ones, but you have these asshole scammers to blame for your bad rep in Malaysia. All you scammers can take your lying greedy asses and get the hell out of my country.
ReplyDeleteHi, I am Gerard Prescott and I turned to a hacker called Snooper Toks ( works for a hacker group F Society Australia) earlier this year after losing $260,000 through an online dating scam.
For the last 12 months all I've done is look for answers.
I got the hacker to find the IP addresses, and I found an IP address in Nigeria and one in South Africa.
I was tricked into sending the money after meeting who i thought was a Brisbane-based woman facebook account named Tamara Randle on a Christian dating website late last year.
I reported the fraud to the Federal Government's Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Authority (ACORN), but I did not get a response until six months later.
I couldn't get the police to do anything.
The information he gathered was fowarded to the Australian and international police to identify the scammers. We got their address, through a court you can subpoena this information, then you get a proper investigation and trail. The South African authorities helped pick him up less than half of my money was recovered. We couldn't get to his Nigerian accomplice in time.
Do you know more about this story? Do you need to recover money lost to dating scams?
Email stealthsnooper@gmail.com