Chong: Make it easier for scam victims to recover losses
KUCHING: The Ombudsman for Financial Services (OFS) should improve, simplify and expedite its adjudication process and provide a cheaper and faster avenue for victims of unauthorised transactions to recover their losses, said Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen.
In a statement, Chong said he spent over three hours recently helping a victim of a bank scam to fill in questionnaires prepared by OFS which was not an easy task, as most laymen would find it too difficult to answer the questions properly.
According to Chong, the victim known only as Mr Chew only found out on April 28, 2022 that three unauthorised transfers had occurred in his bank account, amounting to RM6,769.
He said all three transfers were effected without Chew receiving any one-time password (OTP) or text messages from the bank.
Upon Chew’s complaint to the bank, RM1,819 was subsequently refunded to him for one of the transactions, but the bank refused to refund him for the other two unauthorised transfers totalling RM4,950.
Chew’s credit card with another bank was also hacked and charged with five transactions of payment totalling RM10,297, Chong added.
“I have helped him fill in the claims with OFS against both banks and forwarded all necessary documents to the OFS. Yet, the OFS was slow in the process.
“Meanwhile, (the bank) continues to charge interest of more than RM100 per month,” he said.
Chong also said that last month, he received a reply from the Finance Minister on the performance of OFS and the statistics of successful claims filed by bank customers against their banks.
The statistics, he said, was most disappointing and it seemed that the OFS was protecting the interest of the banks more than the interest of their customers.
“That is definitely not the purpose of an ombudsman. The reply from the Finance Minister shows that out of a total of 157 claims filed with and adjudicated by the OFS, 140 were decided in favour of the banks while the remaining 17 either favoured the customers or each reached amicable settlement.
“In other words, the banks enjoyed an almost 90 per cent ‘winning’ rate in the OFS,” said Chong, who is also Stampin MP and Padungan assemblyman.
As such, he reminded that the ombudsman’s role is supposed to protect the underdogs, not those in superior position.
“Therefore, it is for the Ministry of Finance and Bank Negara to issue a directive order on this matter rather than leaving it to the whims and fancy of the OFS to act to the disadvantage of banks’ customers,” he added.