Teenage girl falls victim to loan sharks

The Star

A 14-year-old girl became a victim of a loan shark scam after being coerced into sharing explicit images to obtain a loan.  Read more at https://tinyurl.com/3hk4f9rv  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00A 14-year-old girl fell victim to a loan shark scam

00:07after being coerced into sharing naked photos to get a loan.

00:12The girl, whose name was not revealed due to her age,

00:15was accompanied by her mother at a press conference on Thursday

00:19by MCA Public Service and Complaints Department Head

00:22Datosri Michael Chong,

00:24Wanita MCA National Berlianwani's Bureau Chief Yvonne Lau,

00:29as well as lawyers and other loan shark and scam victims on Thursday.

00:35The girl said that in early July, when looking for part-time jobs,

00:39she was added to a WhatsApp group to increase orders

00:42and started the task after paying RM30.

00:46She said that she did get paid more than RM200 at the beginning,

00:51but when she completed other tasks later,

00:54the other party claimed that it did not meet the requirements

00:57and asked her to pay RM500 to reactivate the task.

01:03When she paid again and completed the task,

01:06the other party claimed that the task was wrong

01:09and asked her to pay RM1,000 to resolve the problem.

01:14Being desperate, the girl clicked on the influencer's loan ad on Instagram

01:18and applied for a RM1,000 loan, but only received RM600.

01:24She said the loan shark insisted that she must take explicit photos of herself

01:30to get the full RM1,000 loan since she's a minor.

01:34The girl eventually sought help from her parents after she could not repay the loan on time.

01:48Her father paid RM1,500 to settle the debt

01:51and called the person to confirm that the nude photos had been deleted.

01:55However, the loan shark demanded an additional RM15,000

02:00saying the previous payment was too early

02:03and had caused issues with their system.

02:06I have your photo card taken

02:08and now I want RM15,000

02:12to settle this thing.

02:16Otherwise, I will post your naked photo to Facebook

02:21and I'll post everywhere.

02:24I'll shame you.

02:25Lau said it was possible that the scammers and loan sharks

02:28could be colluding with each other.

02:31The modus operandi is like, it's an ecosystem

02:34whereby they will learn these youngsters to go and do some online tasks

02:40like, you know, swatan.

02:42It's like normally you purchase or you comment what you want to do

02:46then later you get some rebate.

02:47So after that, when they're doing like one task by one task

02:51first time, they will get the money.

02:53Then after that, the second time, oh, you did something wrong.

02:56Then the money is stuck there.

02:57So now you need to top up like RM500 to actually take out the money

03:03from that system.

03:05And these youngsters, right, they don't know.

03:07They thought that the money do exist

03:10and they will go and get a loan shark.

03:12I believe it's an ecosystem whereby they'll go online

03:15and get the money and to pay into that particular system.

03:18And now they owe another amount of money, you know, from the loan shark.

03:23Chang said he had received at least three extortion cases

03:27that involved nude photos this year alone

03:30out of the 43 related complaints by women victims.

03:34We are extremely concerned that as young as 14 years old

03:38can go and borrow a loan.

03:40Out of these 43 cases, although it's three cases

03:45where I believe it's the tips of the iceberg.

03:48Today, my main point is that I want to let you all know

03:52that the seriousness of this young girl

03:56started to borrow for a loan and post naked.

04:00The girl and her family have lodged a police report on the matter.

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