Final-year student falls for RM100-a-day ‘accounting job’ that turned her bank account into a mule account

KUCHING, Oct 4 — A 22-year-old final-year business student has become the latest victim of a mule account scheme in Sarawak. According to Milton Foo, the Public Complaints Bureau chief of the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), the incident began on September 20 when the student discovered an online job offer via Facebook. She was subsequently contacted by a person via WhatsApp, who offered her a part-time online accounting job.

The pay for this job was RM100 per day. However, the catch was that the job involved receiving money from individuals through her bank account. On September 22 and 23, a total of RM12,246 was deposited into her bank account from five different individuals, after which the funds were transferred to two other accounts. Later, on the same day, a sum of RM20,117 was deposited into her e-wallet account from eight individuals, subsequently being sent to six separate accounts as instructed.

Despite the promise of payment, the victim did not receive her promised payment and the suspect eventually vanished, becoming uncontactable. The victim later discovered that her bank account had been frozen upon noticing that she was being used by the suspect. Upon conducting checks on the Semak Mule portal, she found that there were three police reports lodged on her bank account, one each in Sentul, Sri Petaling, and Kelana Jaya. Subsequently, she reported the incident to the police on September 29.

Foo stressed that this case serves as a stark reminder to university students and fresh graduates to be wary of job offers obtained from social media. He warned that any job offer requiring job-seekers to use their own bank accounts for receiving and transferring money is a definite red flag.