Cryptocurrency has been all the rage for quite some time now and many people are still jumping on the bandwagon to invest in it. If you are one of them, then do be careful not to fall into any scams!
A reader, who chose to remain anonymous, got in touch with us at WORLD OF BUZZ and informed us of her husband falling for a bitcoin scam back in 2016. In an email sent to us, she told us that her husband got cheated out of RM1.3 million when he invested 31 bitcoins back then. Wah, so much!
To add insult to injury, when the couple made a police report in May 2017, they were also cheated out of more money by an unscrupulous lawyer. Apparently, they had visited a police station in Serdang but the Inspector there had recommended the lawyer to them as he advised them to take up a civil case. The Inspector also said that she had previous experience in similar cases.
She said, “My husband set up an appointment with the lawyer and explained the case to her. She agreed to take up the case and bring it to court but required an initial payment of RM13,000 as initial fees to proceed with sending the Letter of Demand. My husband made the requested payment of RM 13,000 immediately after meeting her on 15 Aug 2017 and she promised to start working on the case after the payment was made.”
Source: facebook
That was when their nightmare started as the lawyer did not make any progress on their case. After a few weeks of back and forth contact where the lawyer constantly avoided the couple’s calls and delayed their case, she finally said that they could terminate her services if they weren’t happy. About time, too!
Feeling highly suspicious by this time, the couple decided to do a little background research on the lawyer and to their horror, they found that she had previously scammed other people as well. They then agreed to terminate her services and asked for a refund of the RM13,000 they had paid. She said that she would return the money to them within seven days but broke her promise again.
Frustrated, the unlucky couple tried to lodge more reports against her through various official channels including another police station in USJ but in most cases, they were stonewalled by indifferent responses. They checked with the Advocates and Solicitor Disciplinary Board (ASDB) governed by Bar Council and discovered that she is still active and practising law. They also managed to find out that there were already many cases lodged against her but it looked like there were no actions taken.
Another police officer asked them to appoint a lawyer to handle the case but they refused, as they did not have faith or the resources to hire another lawyer after the whole fiasco. By this time, the scamming lawyer had paid back the couple RM5,500 but there was still a balance of RM7,500 that she owed the couple.
After getting Persatuan Pengguna Islam Malaysia’s (PPIM) help, they finally managed to meet with the lawyer herself on December 28, 2017 along with a police inspector. They suspected that many of these officers were helping the lawyer as many parties were reluctant to help the unlucky couple.
The reader told us, “In that meeting, she arrogantly told the Inspector to ask my husband (who was sitting right in front of her) to withdraw all the reports made against her. In her words, ‘Why is he making reports everywhere? Ask him (her husband) to withdraw all the reports, then only I will refund the money to him.’ We argued but the police seems to be siding with her and we walked out from the meeting, with no further progress on our bitcoin scam case or this cheating lawyer.”
For illustration purposes only | source: wikimedia commons
They hope that by putting this message out there, it will serve as a warning and other people would not fall prey to the same scamming lawyer. They also hope to get their remaining money back from the lawyer.
On top of that, they advise others to research properly before coming to any agreement with a lawyer and to make sure that he/she can be trusted. The scamming lawyer’s office is reportedly in Petaling Jaya and many others are currently in financial trouble too because she has cheated their money.
Be extra careful, guys and make sure you do your research first!
Also read: Kuantan Woman Cheats 71 People Out of RM84,000 by ‘Promising’ Them Cheap PR1MA Houses
