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KUALA LUMPUR, October 23 – The Malaysian Securities Commission (SC) has received 370 inquiries and complaints about illegal investment schemes as of the end of September 2020, compared to 317 for the entirety of last year.
President Datuk Syed Zaid Albar said there has been a recent increase in “cloned company scams” in which the scammer posing as a legitimate licensed entity to mislead investors into believing they are investing in a legitimate entity.
He said that based on SC’s findings, the promotion of such scams was commonly done through social media channels, with the use of WhatsApp and Facebook being the most frequent channels.
“Investors who received investment opportunity offers through WhatsApp messages or Facebook channels should be careful.
“I would like to advise investors to always check the status of the person and entity with the SC before investing their money in any investment plan,” he said in his welcome remarks at the SC virtual InvestSmart Fest 2020 (Virtual ISF 2020 ) here today.
Syed Zaid said that during the first six months of this year alone, Malaysians were reported to have lost RM914 million to scams.
He said investors’ vulnerability to scams could be partly due to their unrealistic expectation of investment returns.
In a survey by SC earlier this year, it showed that most investors in Malaysia have an unrealistic expectation of a 24 to 30 percent annual return on their investments, he said.
Today, investors’ vulnerability is also compounded by their quest for yield in this low interest rate environment, he added.
“Given the rapid increase in illegal investment scams, the SC has recently established an internal Task Force to focus on investigating and taking enforcement action against the perpetrators.
“We urge investors to also play their role by coming forward to provide information to the SC if they have been approached by someone offering these schemes,” he said.
Virtual ISF 2020 is a flagship annual investor education event that runs for three days from today.
The event has a strong background of industry experts sharing knowledge about investment opportunities, financial management, retirement planning, and how digitization affects investment decisions, while reminding the public to stay vigilant when investing.
This year’s edition, held for virtually the first time, has so far attracted more than 5,000 participants. – Bernama
