That itself shows that scams are happening at an alarming rate in our country.

Scammers targetting a specific group

Confirming that, phone safety technology company Truecaller has revealed that Malaysians have lost hundreds of millions of ringgit to phone scammers in the past two years.

According to a report by Mashable SEA, data by Malaysian authorities estimate that in 2019, Malaysians lost more than RM254 million across 5,725 cases of fraud calls, and more alarmingly, the number grew to over RM287 million (US$68.7 million) across 6,003 cases in 2020.

In the first three months of 2021, meanwhile, a total of 1,392 cases of fraudulent calls were reported to the police, with over RM38 million lost within the time period.

Yeah, that's a lot of money, alright.

While highlighting the infamous Macau scam as the main source of Malaysians losing a big sum of money, Truecaller said the scammers usually target those who are closer to retirement ages and those who are not too technologically savvy.

"Normally, the culprit behind these scams (the unknown caller) claims to be an officer from a government body such as the police, customs department, Bank Negara Malaysia, the courts or from private bodies such as banking institutions.

"Their purpose is to scam potential victims into believing that they have issues with the authorities, forcing them to disclose their personal and financial information,” Truecaller said in a statement quoted in the report.

On top of that, it doesn’t help that the scammers used the fears, anxiety and the insecurities of the people during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to capitalise on selling things like life-saving drugs, oxygen cylinders, oxygen concentrators, or securing scarce hospital beds.

The report further said that Malaysia is currently ranked 32nd in the world for the amount of spam calls received by an average Malaysian at 3.5 spam call cases per Malaysian per month.

The report added that on average, Truecaller users in Malaysia receive over eight million spam calls per month.

With scam calls being so rampant these days, it is very important to remain vigilant at all times because the last thing you want is a scammer running away with your money.

Oh, we also almost fell victim to a scam call. Click here to read our full account.