Internet love scam costs Malay woman huge sum of money

Kuala Lumpur, Aug 5 (ANI): A Malay woman ended up losing RM 20,000 in an online love scam, after she became friendly and fell in love with a British man over the Internet.

Y.K. Lam, of Ampang, became friendly with the man after chatting with him for two months via a certain website, and he even sent her his photograph along with those of his family's.

When the two decided to get engaged, Lam claims, the man said that he would be sending over a parcel of presents from Britain, including an engagement ring, a gold wrist watch, a gold necklace for her and her mother, a camera handphone and some clothes.

"I was also to receive 10,000 pounds, a laptop and a rose as a token of our love," the Star Online quoted her as saying at a press conference at the MCA Complaints and Public Services Department on August 4.

But the gifts did not come freely, as Lam was told that she needed to pay the courier service fee of RM 16,379.29, which she did by banking in the amount at a bank in Taman Putra.

However, on July 29, she received a call from a woman who introduced herself as a Customs officer named Mary, and requested her to transfer another RM 3,500 into a bank account to redeem the parcel.

After Lam complied, she received another call from Mary the next day claiming that her British boyfriend, Raymond, had been detained in the police lock-up after arriving here to meet her.

She was told to pay RM 3,000 to release Raymond and obtain the parcel.

When she sensed that something was amiss with the whole episode, she decided to lodge a police report on July 31.

Department head Datuk Michael Chong said that seven other women had fallen victim to such Internet love scam, with total losses of RM 383,371 last year.

This year, he had received cases of five women and two men who had been victimised and with a total loss of RM 186,118.

"To make matters worse, two women were also lured to have sex with the conmen," he added.

Chong said that it was usually lonely individuals seeking for companionship that fell victims to such scams. (ANI)