Shopee Malaysia warns public as more victims fall prey to employment scams

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Shopee Malaysia has issued a warning to the public to be wary of individuals impersonating the eCommerce platform's employees. These individuals are said to offer employment opportunities, cash rewards, and lucky draws via messaging platforms, such as Whatsapp. Addressing the issue, Shopee said in a statement that it does not recruit employees through messaging platforms for purposes of "increasing the exposure rate of merchants".

Furthermore, it added that for the contests such as "Lucky Draws", "Tap and Win" and "Spin and Win" it does host, the contests will be clearly available via the official Shopee app, social media pages and WhatsApp verified business account. A+M has reached out to Shopee for additional information regarding its strategy on warning the public.

Impersonation scams have been on the rise in recent years and many major Malaysian brands have had to release statements to better educate their customers on the rise of such scams. Not only do such scams impact consumers, they are also detrimental to consumer trust and loyalty, which ultimately can gravely impact the bottom line a brand.

In a previous interview with A+M, industry experts said that brands must train both their employees and consumers to identify scams actively to safeguard their reputation. Consumers must be taught to educate and identifying common signs such as poor spelling, suspicious URLs, mismatched sender address, grammar and writing as well as lack of trust seals, among others.

It is also important for brands to act fast to first inform the public and then work with providers to take down the offending sites.

Meanwhile, across the border, in 2020, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said that it received at least 1,000 reports of social media impersonation scams where victims were tricked into disclosing their credit card information and one-time password (OTP) in the first five months of 2020. According to a press release, the scams amounted to at least SG$2.2 million. SPF also said that scammers would usually ask the victims for their personal details such as mobile number, internet banking account details, and OTP on the pretext of helping them to sign up for fake contests or promotions on Lazada or Shopee.

In the majority of these reported cases, scammers often used compromised or spoofed social media accounts to impersonate as the victims’ friends or followers on Facebook or Instagram. Victims would later discover that unauthorised fraudulent transactions had been made from their bank accounts and mobile wallets without their consent. According to SPF, these fraudulent transactions often occurred on online platforms selling game credits that could be used on a variety of online games.

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