FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

SEPTEMBER SEMESTER / YEAR 2020

OUMH1203

ENGLISH FOR WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

MATRICULATION NO : 960112145975001
IC NO. : 960112145975
TELEFON NO. : 010 2501128
E-MAIL : shankaran96@oum.edu.my

LEARNING CENTRE : SRI RAMPAI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

No Title Page

1.0 Essay Outline 3

2.0 Introduction to the Internet and the Role Players 4–5

3.0 Types of Internet Scams 6

3.1 Financial Fraud 6–7
3.2 Phishing 7
3.3 Love Scam 7–8
3.4 The case of ‘Macau Scam’ in Malaysia 8

4.0 Conclusion 9

5.0 Reference 10

1.0 ESSAY OUTLINE

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TITLE
- Social Medial Brings More Harm Than Good

INTRODUCTION
- Introduction to the Internet and a detailed introduction on the thesis statement
- Some of the key people involved in the thesis statement

TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA / INTERNET SCAMS

Type 1
Type 2
Type 3
Type 4

CONCLUSION

REFERENCE

2.0 Introduction to the Internet and the Role Players

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 The Internet is a powerful global media that has great potential to dominate the
entire world. The existence of the Internet plays a very important role in the world of
communication and information. This is because the Internet is used as a medium for delivery
and acquiring information. With the Internet, we humans also get to enjoy two different
worlds; the real world and the virtual world where we get to be anything or anyone we desire.

With search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Ask and video sharing sites such as
YouTube, we have the means of literally having the world at our finger tips.

But with all these said, the growing cyber world also brings many negative effects
to us Internet users such as cyber crime and internet scams.

For example, based on statistical reports issued by the RMP's Commercial Crime
Investigation Department (CCID) Criminal Investigation Division Cyber and Multimedia
PDRM, a case of cyber love fraud or better known as African Scams are in a state of alarm.
The number of these fraud cases increased in 2019 at which cases were reported as many as
1095 cases compared to only 814 cases in 2018.

Effectiveness of the cyber security of Internet users depends on social environmental

factors. Parents are a key agent in providing awareness of cyber security to children. This is
because the formation of a child's behaviour begins at the home level. Mothers and fathers
have a huge responsibility in educating their children so that they turn out to be useful and
successful human beings in life. From the point of the child however, parents are always an
idol to them. Furthermore, all actions shown by the parents will be followed by the child. The
same is true in the context of cyber security. Parents should teach their children the good and
the bad about the virtual world.

The question is, do parents fulfil their responsibilities to their children in this context?

To what extent can parents monitor their children's online activities?

Another point, peers as socializing agents are also very important to enhance the level of
awareness and practices of cyber security among consumers. An individual will feel more fun
together with friends because they get to enjoy hanging out, gossiping, joking and so on. In

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progress the upbringing of a child to adolescence, morals and activities taught by parents will
also be influenced by peers. Therefore, the selection of peers also plays an important part in
the process of self-formation of an individual.

Peers play the function of a family successor. This is because, when parents are busy
with work affairs then children will find peers to ask questions and discuss stuff. In addition,
peers also serve as a group reference where in the process of raising a child or adolescent
often is by comparing themselves with peers and at one level children or adolescents will
change their behaviour along with their peers. Furthermore, peers are also always counsellors
where they seek views and advice on something.

In the context of cyber security, friends or peers should be used as a platform to increase the
level of awareness about cyber security. This is because they have the opportunity to share,
advice and chat amongst themselves on aspects of cyber security such as advice on usage
antivirus, dissemination of false information and so on. However, it is now becoming a
question to the extent to which these peers play a role in providing awareness about cyber
security?

3.0 Types of Internet Scams

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 In general, Internet Fraud or Cyber Crime can be categorized as one of the crimes of
the virtual world that cunningly cannot be identified by current internet technology users.
Technology and communication facilities today make it easy for users to do a lot of daily
business with using just fingertips. Nevertheless, this facility has created many types of
scams in the virtual worlds by parties who are only interested in their own profit. The types of
internet scams that exist are mostly unnoticed by the victims. In fact, the majority of victims
are fed with lucrative rewards which are only intended to trap the victim to invest money
without any interest. Internet scams nowadays have also been identified as increasingly
cunning and sophisticated because there are various types of scams that have been committed
in society.

3.1 Financial Internet Fraud

Personal loans are indeed a popular financial facility among Malaysians
today. To this day, many Malaysians have personal loans to use for specific purpose
and of course the loan provides many benefits to the borrower if used for good.
Examples are like repairing a house, helping parents, debt management, continuing
education and even as capital for business. However, keep in mind that not all
personal loans offered are genuine; especially if the loan is not from a bank. Bank
Negara Malaysia (BNM) also often advices and gives reminders to the public to be
more careful with loan offers. This is because nowadays many financial lending offers
that go through social media is fraudulent. The common modus operandi of this type
of company is to notify the loan applicant who is having a bad CCRIS record.
Therefore, for to get a loan application approved they have to give a sum of advanced
payment. After the early payment is accepted, the company will usually disappear and
cannot be contacted. A legitimate lender will not ask for a borrower pay any down
payment before receiving the loan. In fact it is illegal for them to do so. However,
most scammers will ask for a down payment as a mandatory processing fee,
instalment payment, insurance or collateral due to records of the bad credit.
Another way to find out if the lender is cheating is through an interest-free
loan offer or profit on the part of the lender. An example is the offer to ‘borrow
RM10,000, pay RM10,000 ’. This means that the lender offers interest-free loans or
profit. As we all know, every lending company is a business and would definitely

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 want to profit from every loan offered. So, it is impossible for companies to provide
their services without expecting a profit.

3.2 Phishing
‘Phishing’ is the act of stealing someone’s personal data or biodata,
starting from the full name, date of birth, mother's name, and victim’s address up to
the victim's identity number. The purpose of "phishing" is to access the victim's bank
pin number, or to deliver something which is defamatory by using the identity of the
said victim. ‘Phishing’ is usually side by side with ‘spam’ or in other words
‘spammer’ which launches attacks to thousands to millions of prospective victims via
e-mail or telephone claiming to be insurance officers, employees banks, and various
parties who according to the victim have the right to request all the victim's personal
data.

3.3 Love Scam

Love Scam which was mentioned in the introduction is a type of online
scam that involves situations where scammers know definitely their victims through
social sites or familiarization websites and then try to approach and have a love affair.
Through this site, scammers will use a prominent identity they are perfect true love
friends. They are willing to spend time and energy to gain the trust of the victims,
seduce them as well as express a desire to get married. The sweet words and
persuasions of love and affection uttered are actually some of the scripts that have
been used frequently and their target is to manipulate the emotional state and
weakness of the victim. But behind all this, the real purpose is to deceive the victim
and extort large sums of money from the victim.

According to the PDRM Commercial Crime Investigation Department,

amongst the ways a fraud plans his/her Love Scam is by:

- Post pictures of handsome men or sexy women and claim it’s them.
- Disguised as a widower who is newly divorced and wants to find a life partner.
- Have a great and successful career.
- A former refugee.
- Fake social site accounts.

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- Take a long time to reply to messages.
- Try to avoid communication via computer webcam.
- Use sentences to seduce.
- Promise marriage.
- Promise to send a package containing special gifts.
- Promise to come to Malaysia to meet the victim and their families.
- Using a third party account (owned by a local).
- The victim is asked to pay for the package to be sent.
- Asking for money even though never met the victim.

3.4 The case of ‘Macau Scam’ in Malaysia

Macau Scam activities are the most recent and growing financial fraud
scams rampant in our country. It involves phone calls from individuals disguised as
officers from the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), courts, Bank Negara Malaysia
(BNM) or other agencies. The syndicate contacts the victim by making the story seem
like the individual involved in cases such as money laundering, run-off, credit card
debt and so on. They will then ask the victim to transfer a sum of money into the bank
account them to solve the case or problem encountered. There are various types of
Macau Scam such as bank loan fraud, credit card, kidnapping and ransom, release of
detainee, PDRM and the court, lucky draw prizes, travel packages and more. Based
on statistics released by the PDRM Commercial Crime Investigation Department
(JSJK) on 2017 of 4,500 cases with a loss of RM113.11 million involving fraud
through phone calls and short message service (SMS). On August 20, 2018, this
newspaper reported to the police Selangor successfully defeated three Macau Scam
syndicates targeting Chinese nationals and local as a victim.

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4.0 Conclusion
Malaysia is indeed proud if its people that are IT literate but at the same time they
are too need to be IT-related security literacy. Technology will continue to evolve and
criminals will always looking for new ways to commit crimes with the help of such
technology. Sometimes the crime that occurs is due to the actions of the individual himself.
Facebook users can avoid becoming a victim of cyber spying among their cyber partners if
they are smart in using this social networking site. Among the actions that can be taken by
them are to avoid using the original identity when registering on Facebook because the
revelation of real identity can make them easily recognizable by cyber spies, do not post
personal photos or complete personal information, avoid meeting in person face to face with
new acquaintances of cyber, using social sites for that purpose beneficial only and choose a
social partner by controlling the cyber partner's environment be required. Indeed the wise use
by social site users can be a barrier to cybercrime.
We hope that the crime scene that occurs in foreign countries does not occur in
Malaysia due to self-forgetfulness. Cyber spying crime can actually be avoided. Because of
the negative effects of using this social site, parents need to equip themselves with adequate
knowledge so that their children do not become the future of technological sophistication
today. Parents can play a role in restraint abuse of social sites by their children by means of
monitoring children. Lack of parental monitoring of children will invite problems that are
expected in the future such as running away from home by following social friends and so on.
In the context of the use of social media among teenagers today, parents can play an effective
role in preventing them from becoming victims of this new crime. Parents can ASK to be
friends on their children's Facebook. Indirectly, they will find out the extent to which their
children are involved in relationships in this virtual world. In addition that is, they can also
find out who their children's friends are. Even so, it is quite difficult to implement if children
use names other than real names and theirs do not want parents to be their cyber friends.

(WORD COUNT : 2,050)

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5.0 REFERENCE

Mohamed, D. (2012). Investigating cybercrimes under the Malaysian cyberlaws and

the criminal procedure code: Issues and Chalenges. Malaysian Law Journal Articles.

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2019/04/05/nigerian-and-malaysian-arrested-
over-11-internet-love-scams

https://www.nst.com.my/news/crime-courts/2019/04/481918/woman-loses-rm16-million-
love-scam

https://www.bernama.com/Kes Penipuan Dalam Talian Meningkat Tahun Lepas

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