YBhg Puan Mas Tina Abdul Hamid, Co-ordinator of VTREC on FB Live session
KUALA LUMPUR, 20 January 2023: With the approaching 2023 Chinese New Year, the Vehicle Theft Reduction Council of Malaysia (VTREC) accelerate its dynamism in broadening awareness about vehicle theft through a 30 minutes Facebook Live Session to advocate the public concerning online vehicle transaction apart from providing handful tips for online vehicle purchase.
The Facebook Live session entitled “Be Careful When Purchasing Vehicle Online”. The advice comes from The Co-ordinator of VTREC, YBhg Puan Mas Tina Abdul Hamid during a half an hour interchange with the public which serves as an interactive platform to inform and educate the community concerning shady online vehicle transactions.
Advocacy Banner for the VTREC’s Facebook Live
YBhg Puan Mas Tina commenced the live session with a brief surrounding of the topic. According to her, the rapid advancement of technology has catered new opportunities for scammers to exploit people in the online environment prior execution of their agenda and the public is their main target. Granting the technology expansion, scammers normally operate within the syndicate and took advantage of the loopholes of the online system, for instance by remaining anonymous without exposing their true identity online. As a consequence, the online scam victims will experience financial and asset loss which exert an impact not just on their life, well-being but their family’s well-being as well, the impact can go much deeper than loss of money, in some cases there were devastating consequences.
YBhg Puan Mas Tina asserts everyone especially the public to curb the online scam by having a good sense of knowledge and vigilance when it comes to online purchases.
Throughout the session, YBhg Puan Mas Tina responded to the public queries revolving around the topic. Among the questions posed, one of them is regarding the safest method to do online purchases. She said that the public need to ensure the website or e-platform that they are engaging with is valid and legally operated such as Shopee and Lazada since their payment procedure is reasonably safe and secure. The payment will only be made to the sellers once the products are received by the customer. For vehicles particularly, several safe and secure platforms are CarSome and MyTukar. YBhg Puan Mas Tina later shared some statistical insights (source: Comercial Crime Investigation Department, Royal Malaysia Police) on online vehicle scams for the benefit of the viewers. Throughout the year 2020, a total of 678 cases of vehicle scams involving loses of RM 5.9 million. In 2021, from January until May alone, there were about 461 online vehicle scams which recorded losses of RM 5.3 million. She believes it is likely that the recorded cases might rise for the second half of 2021.
YBhg Puan Mas Tina Abdul Hamid sharing tips on how to avoid being a scam victim and advised public to be watchful of shady platform
The session pursued with YBhg Puan Mas Tina answering a question on modus operandi or mechanism that is used by the scammers. YBhg Puan Mas Tina explained that the downsides of the online platform itself contributed as the main pillar of opportunities which allows the scammers to perform their various tricks to lure victims. One of its perks is that can be executed anywhere with a veiled identity. Apart from that, falsified advertisement such as insanely low price sometimes far below the market price attracts their target, most of them could not resist the seduction of the scammers. Further on, YBhg Puan Mas Tina spent the whole 30 minutes to good use by addressing as many questions as possible posed by the viewers.
Speaking to viewers on the FB Live on what to do if you have been the victim of vehicle purchasing scam online and what recourse you have after you have been scammed, YBhg Puan Mas Tina said, firstly stay calm, then lodge a police report by providing all written communications with the scammer at the same time provide account that being used to send the money. Then, informed your bank, also suggested for the victims to lodge a report with The Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry (KPDNHEP) “Tribunal for Consumer Claims Malaysia” or Sessions Court (Mahkamah Rendah) for amount less than RM5,000.
VTREC’s Co-ordinator, YBhg Puan Mas Tina Abdul Hamid with VTREC Team behind the scene
Wrapping up the session, YBhg Puan Mas Tina advised the public to always be cautious and vigilant when purchasing a vehicle online and ended the session with a Happy Chinese New Year 2023 greetings to the viewers.
