KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 12): A total of 1,851 complaints and enquiries related to unlicensed activities and investment scams in Malaysia were received by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) during the first nine months of this year.
As a comparison, SC received 3,475 and 1,798 complaints and enquiries related to unlicensed activities and investment scams in Malaysia for 2020 and 2021, respectively.
The latest data from the SC showed that scammers are still rampant and primarily using social media such as Facebook and messaging application Telegram to attract and scam investors with offers of investment packages/recommendations and claims of unrealistic guaranteed high returns with no risk.
This is on the back of SC’s survey findings that showed Malaysians still have low levels of awareness and knowledge of investment and capital market products.
An SC spokesperson shared that the regulator has taken actions to combat the scams, including blocking the website, and social media created by perpetrators of these scams that target the Malaysian public, as well as putting them on an alert list on SC’s website.
He revealed that 120 social media accounts have been blocked by the SC as of Sept 20 this year, with 85 accounts on the Telegram platform, and the remaining 35 on Facebook. This represents a whopping 243% increase over the 35 social media accounts blocked for the full year in 2021.
SC has also blocked 144 websites during the first nine months of this year, versus…
