He said Section 420, in particular, which deals with cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, must be strengthened.
Presently, anyone convicted of this offence faces between one and 10 years in prison, whipping, and a fine.
“The laws should be reviewed to fit the current state of affairs. We need to improve them to be in line with the world of online banking,” he told FMT.
According to CCID’s statistics, there were 3,370 scam calls in 2022, more than double the 1,585 reported in 2021.
Ramli said the victims were often law-abiding citizens with no criminal record. These people are inclined to feel intimidated when threatened by scammers who claim that they have “broken the law”, he said.
“This is why you see a lot of people who are retirees and teachers (fall victim to these scam calls).”
One victim, a 50-year-old woman who only wanted to be identified as Sarah, lost RM110,000 to a scam group impersonating Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) officials.
Sarah claimed to have been duped by scammers into believing that she owed money to TNB for electricity supply to property she did not own.
“I knew how to avoid other scam calls, like the ones from the Inland Revenue Board (LHDN), because I’m aware they don’t make phone calls to people, but now they use a technique where they claim to be from TNB.
“They were aware that my electricity had been cut off in the past for one of the houses I owned,” she told FMT.
After the first call with the scammer posing as a TNB officer, she received another call from a person claiming to be a policeman accusing her of money laundering.
In a panic, Sarah fell right into the scammers’ playbook, and ended up transferring 90% of her savings after she was told they needed “to check” that the money was not being used illegally.
Sarah is just one of many victims MCA’s public services and complaints department chief Michael Chong has come across.
He called her one of the “lucky” ones. Some others who have sought his help took their own lives after losing their savings, he said.
Chong said at the root of the problem was the sale of personal data, without which scammers would not have access to privileged information. He said that must be stopped.
“These people who are selling our data are the ones who are causing havoc. They should be dealt with severely,” he said.