KUCHING: A man was threatened after attempting to quit his job, which he believed involved illegal activities, according to Sarawak Democratic Action Party (DAP) chairman Chong Chieng Jen.
Speaking at a press conference held in front of the police station in Padungan here on Tuesday (Oct 25), Chong revealed that he accompanied the 21-year-old man, who preferred to be known only as Lim, to lodge a police report for the law to take action immediately.
“Lim got to know a lady on WeChat in April when he was introduced to this job whereby all he had to do was to open up a Maybank account and pass his ATM card and login details to them to operate his account for a sum of RM200 per month.
“Between May and July, he opened up two accounts, one from Maybank and another from CIMB, and he was offered a pay of RM400 per month,” Chong explained.
He added that Lim was offered to do the job full-time in June and basically it involved him introducing this job to his friends and earning commission for this.
“The company will then rent these bank accounts to other companies looking for third party accounts to operate their businesses.
“After being in the job for a few months, Lim felt that the job was dodgy and on top of reading a lot of news about scams recently, he decided to tell his employer that he wanted to quit.
“However, the employer, who is also from Kuching, told him that if he wanted to quit, he had to pay more than RM100,000 as compensation.”
Chong said Lim did not borrow any money from the company nor owe anything to the company, thus believed that this was just purely extortion.
Chong condemned their actions of posting Lim’s identification card on social media as a way to defame him for not paying the money.
“I was told that his family was threatened and he was beaten up just a few days ago. They actually told him to go to a lawyer firm today, appointed by the employer, to sign an agreement that he will pay the compensation for leaving the company.
“Thus, he decided to approach me yesterday evening for help and on his way to meet me this morning at my office around 8.30am, he was blocked by two cars and the hooligans attempted to kidnap and intimidate him near Everrise Padungan.
“Luckily we were nearby and as I rushed over, I informed Padungan police. Officers ran to the other end of the street and the hooligans ran off.”
Chong advised the younger generation against letting someone else use or operate their personal accounts. “Hopefully this can serve as a lesson to youngsters that they have to be wiser when selecting a job for additional income.”
“I know they are still inexperienced and I know youngsters are desperate these days to earn some side income but please, be wise to not fall for scams like this.
“We lodged a police report to show these hooligans that there is law in Malaysia and hopefully, the law will be able to take action immediately,” Chong added.
“I would like to call on youngsters who are involved in this type of business to stop immediately before it is too late.”
