LETTER | Is address fraud an accepted social norm?

LETTER | My house has been vacant for more than a year. Yet the letters addressed to people I do not know kept being deposited into the post box.

Some bore addresses of senders from within Malaysia while there were also those from financial institutions from abroad.

A fortnight ago, the police announced that in 2019, there were 17,688 online fraud cases reported. Last year, we saw the number increase to 34,495, almost doubling.

Police have called for immediate and proactive measures to combat this phenomenon which does not augur well with some sections of the community.

This brings up the question of how the communities are working in combating this undesirable phenomenon.

Most households, like the author, would just discard such unwelcomed items into dustbins while others would send them back to the post office, which is no longer easy to come by nowadays.

Learned friends may want to defend this act as merely using their clients’ correspondence addresses.

In this four-party situation; as in the financial institution from abroad, its overseas customer, the customer’s legal adviser and the Malaysian house owner who found such unwanted letters deposited into their post boxes, where should prevention begin?

In 2017, Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM) obtained a conviction against a business owner for providing a false business address.

The video on “jangankenascam” produced by Bank Negara Malaysia and other agencies screened daily on our television is another good effort to educate the public.

There is no lack of suggestions online on how to prevent address fraud such as using strong authentication measures right from the start of the process, and strong warnings against exploiting false identity as well.

In response to the common question: “What should someone do if they suspect they are a victim of address fraud?” – lodge a report with the police, of course.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.