‘Anti-scam’ firms promise to recover funds that victims lose. Unfortunately, some end up losing more.

KUALA LUMPUR: Earlier this week, MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong warned the public about “anti-scam” law firms and their schemes that have cost scam victims even more money.

Already vulnerable, these individuals are lured by promises of high recovery rates from these entities, and instead of getting what they lost back, they end up losing more.

Mr Chong’s office has received complaints and feedback about these entities, which advertise on social media. Some of them claim to have clawed back as much as 90% of the money that victims lose, a success rate he characterised as both misleading and implausible.

Mr Chong did not mince words: “This is basically scammers scamming scam victims,” The Star quoted him as saying.

He made these remarks during a press conference on Tuesday (Dec 16).

In one example of such fraudulent activity, a woman tried to get back RM1,500 (S$474) she had lost in a scam. She hired an “anti-scam law firm” in 2024 to help her recover her money. However, in the process of this so-called recovery, she ended up getting scammed out of a staggering RM1.2 million (S$380,000), which is over a thousand times the amount the first scammers had taken from her.

Also, in an example from this year, a man had lost RM390,000 (S$123,000) to scammers. He then engaged a firm he found online, believing that it offered legitimate services. This firm caused him to lose a further RM33,000 (S$10,400).

Mr Chong admitted that in his experience of handling scam cases, his success has been 0%, which is why a 90% or 95% success rate claimed by an entity online should not be believed by members of the public.

Senior lawyer Tan Sri Muham­mad Shafee Abdullah, meanwhile, underlined during the press conference that the online advertisements appear to be specifically targeted at the Chinese community.

The Star reported Mr Muham­mad Shafee as saying that in his experience as a lawyer, it was his Chinese clients who tended to ask about success rates, and might be attracted by such claims.

“They hook you with an interesting story, and then they wipe you off completely,” the report quotes him as adding.

He also noted the regulations for legal advertising in Malaysia, and said that the advertisements online for these so-called anti-scam firms are inconsistent with what the rules allow. /TISG

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