Yew Jia Haur, a councillor with the Selayang Municipal Council wants the authorities to investigate and act against telecommunications companies which did not take any steps to prevent the breach.
“I suspect that the syndicate obtained my details from an alleged data breach that was reported a few months ago.” He believes that information was used by someone who phoned him claiming he had yet to settle a bank loan.
“I have not seen the MCMC taking any action against telcos or even advising the public to be vigilant about phone calls from people claiming they are bank officials,” he said.
At a press conference at the Segambut DAP service centre today, Yew said he received a scam call on Tuesday stating that he had not paid up a personal loan he had taken in September.
“I received a call at 4.20pm from a ‘1300’ hotline number, notifying me I still owed the bank RM2,025.
“I felt something was wrong because I did not take any loans with my bank, and I only have a savings account with the bank,” he said, adding that he asked his DAP colleague Lai Chun Chian, who was with him at the time, to record the conversation.
Yew said he decided to play along with the person, and was connected to a man claiming to be a customer service officer.
“The man asked for my IC number and I gave a false number to him. Telling me the number I had given was incorrect, he told me my real IC number,” he said. The man insisted that Yew had taken the bank loan.
Yew said he heard background noises similar to a bank branch outlet, where queue numbers were called, during the four-minute call.
“This can make people believe the call is really from a bank.”
Yew complained to his bank and was advised to go to the MCMC. He believed whoever called him had gotten his IC number from the data breach incident.
Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng, who was also present, said it was better to “just hang up” when a recording was played on the other line stating an outstanding payment.
“Banks will not call their customers to ask them to pay up their debts because banks only send written notices to debtors’ home addresses.”