Scam #1 : Prepaid mobile phone
Ever since moving to Australia, I have continued to keep my Malaysian mobile phone number. It would be easier for my friends in Malaysia to keep in touch with me should I be in KL. The only difference is that I have converted my postpaid account to a prepaid account. This made sense as I am not liable for the monthly mobile phone charges associated with postpaid and I can easily monitor my usage with the prepaid or so I thought.
When I am in Australia, I seldom check my Malaysian mobile phone as all of my friends know how to contact me when I am in Australia. On the rare occasions when I do switch on my Malaysia mobile phone number, I will usually get a lot of SPAM messages via SMS. The messages are usually advertisements and occasionally, people who are trying to hook you into online gambling. I would delete all of those messages and my mobile phone will be free and clean. Recently I noted a sender with a 5 digit number sending me a SMS stating that “You have successfully subscribed to our videos. We shall be sending you 2 videos every week”. I thought that was rather weird. The SMS went on to say that “You can opt out from this subscription anytime by typing STOP”. It seems rather strange to me as I have never subscribed to this service, so I chose to ignore. At the same time, I can’t help to think that the message seems legitimate as the number appears to be a “SMS Premium” service provider and there is also an option to unsubscribe from the service. Anyway, I thought I would just ignore and see what happens.
I didn’t receive anything the following week with my Malaysian mobile number so I thought that message was just a SPAM and nothing more. Then the following week I got a SMS again from the same sender with a link to a short 20 seconds video of someone running and that was it! No one in the right mind would pay for a ridiculous short video clip. In the SMS message, it shows a certain amount of money has been charged to my account. My first thought was to block the sender but after doing some research through the internet, I discovered that by blocking the sender it won’t help me. The reason being that this a SMS Premium Provider and it would still charge me unless I unsubscribed. I was still in disbelief as I have never signed up for this service, so to be double sure, I went into my E-statement. From my E-statement I got my confirmation that this is not a SPAM, this is a SCAM!!! I immediately called the office which is located in KL but unfortunately the office was already closed by that time. I decided to just try my luck and sent a STOP message. Immediately I got an automatic reply to say that “You have unsubscribed from our services”. It sounded legitimate but I am still puzzled as to how did I get my mobile number subscribed to the services in the first place without my knowledge.
My theory is that the SCAMMERS will look out for inactive prepaid numbers and then send out “feelers” like a harmless SMS to inform the person that he/she has subscribed. If the person does nothing, then that prepaid mobile number would be the likely “target”. The inactive action by the prepaid number owner would mean: (i) the person hardly uses his/her prepaid number (eg: a person such as me); and (ii) it is highly unlikely the person would know the charges.
I was fortunate that I managed to catch on rather quickly before more money has been deducted. Unfortunately, for my daughter, she wasn’t that fortunate. The entire balance in her prepaid account has been wiped out leaving “0” balance in her account. It wasn’t that long ago when I recharged the amount for her when we were in KL (about 6 months ago). The SCAMMERS acted really fast in siphoning the entire amount.
The way I look at it, the SCAMMERS are really smart. They would first sent out a “feeler” to see if the person would respond. To make it legitimate, they would insert into their first SMS message stating that the recipient can choose opt out of the subscription at anytime by just typing “STOP”. As far as I can recall I have never sent out any SMS using my Malaysian mobile phone number in Australia. Therefore, the question remains is how did they tapped into my Malaysian mobile phone number? I know it is all puzzling but the whole purpose of this post is to create awareness and I hope I have done it here.
Scam #2 - Apple FaceTime -Stolen identity!
A few days ago, I received an email purportedly from Apple informing me that someone had logged into FaceTime using my Apple ID. It gave the name of the device (which is the same as my device) and the time. Two red flags jumped up at me. One, I have never ever use FaceTime so it can’t be me. Furthermore, I am the only person in the family that has the device as specified by Apple. Secondly, I did not use my device at the given time (whether it is Australian time or the US time). The first thing I did was to check whether the email is a legitimate email from Apple. Once I got the confirmation, I immediately changed my password as recommended by Apple. It really worries me that nowadays people are not just stealing money, they are stealing identity as well. So, if you ever received an email such as this, do not dismiss it immediately, do some investigation for it might just save you from being scammed!
Scam #3 - Fake Email
Yesterday, I received an email from my cousin’s law firm in Malaysia. The email appears to be a legitimate account with the name of the law firm, full office address, contact number and facsimile number, all clearly stated at the bottom of the email. The email even sounded formal and business like. In the email, there was an attachment called “contract.pdf” which was locked. Immediately, I contacted my cousin in Malaysia to enquire if he had indeed sent me an email. His response was “Don’t open it”. So, there you go - another scam taking place.
We have to be careful and be observant when it comes to our mobile phones, computers and electronic devices. The SCAMMERS are becoming increasingly sophisticated every passing day. It is no longer an email from someone from Nigeria seeking your assistance in partaking a handsome inheritance, it is now much more sophisticated and believable. Just be careful and if your gut feeling tells you something is not right, it usually isn’t.
