Making payment is a breeze nowadays, with the ability to settle your bill with a scan of a QR code.
However, a scammer in Malaysia took advantage of this by replacing a restaurant’s payment QR code with a fake code of his own.
Several customers purportedly fell for the ruse and transferred money to the cheater’s e-wallet instead.
Source: Facebook
Unfortunately, the store’s CCTV happened to be down and failed to capture his appearance and act.
Digital scams have only become more prevalent in recent years. Everyone knows of phishing emails and fake friend impersonations at this point.
According to a Facebook post on 26 Nov, one cunning crook in Malaysia came up with a devious new method.
He took advantage of the absent-minded ease of digital paying with the scan of a QR code.
According to Sin Chew Daily, the scammer secretly replaced the restaurant’s Touch n’ Go QR code with his own while paying for his meal.
Unwitting customers then scanned the code at the counter and their payment went directly into the man’s e-wallet instead.
The OP of the Facebook post said that scammers like him probably have many of such QR code stickers.
They might then attempt to paste these QR codes at as many locations as possible.
That way, they could potentially scam customers and businesses of thousands of dollars without much effort.
Thus, the OP urged everyone to be careful when making digital payments.
Despite the clever plan, the scammer may have used his actual name in the e-wallet that his code links to.
Source: Facebook
As such, the OP wrote the culprit’s name in her caption and asked if anyone knew him.
The OP later told Shin Chew Daily that the store owner has since been able to identify the culprit as a 53-year-old man.
Unfortunately, the CCTV was not working, so they were unable to capture footage of the man’s appearance or the act itself.
Hopefully, the police can apprehend the crook as soon as possible.
This incident also serves as a reminder to be vigilant when making payments digitally, even at trusted locations.
QR code scams are not by themselves new. Last year, police in Singapore warned the public to watch out for scams concerning Singpass QR codes.
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Featured image adapted from Facebook.
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