After PichaEats, another local catering company, Mango Chutney, was scammed out of RM 22,000, making it the latest case involving individuals posing as representatives from educational ministry as reported in Malay Mail.
Mango Chutney’s founder, C. Suhashini, explained that the scammer, posing as a representative from the Ministry of Education, contacted them via WhatsApp and presented a fake letter on June 11th. The scammer requested catering services for 60 teachers from SMK Bukit Rahman Putra in Sungai Buloh.
“They approached me through WhatsApp with a fake Education Ministry letter, tendering a six-month contract worth RM 500,000 to supply food to the teachers,” Suhashini recounted.
She also added that the scammer asked for menu suggestions, specifying a budget of RM 120 per person. The agreement stipulated a payment term of 3 days, which they agreed to as they believed it was common practice for the government not to pay deposits, usually settling bills a week or a month later.
“We issued a Purchase Order (PO) and an Invoice for the order, and were assured by the representative (scammer) that payment would be made within 3 days. Believing it was standard practice for the government not to pay deposits immediately and we proceeded with the order,” Suhashini explained.
According to Suhashini, the scammer seemed urgent and pressured them to purchase 30 bottles of non-alcoholic sparkling juice as door gifts for teachers.
“The scammer contacted my salesgirl in the morning urgently requesting 30 bottles of sparkling juice as gifts for teachers, providing a supplier contact and asking us to bill them later,” she further elaborated.
She mentioned placing two orders for drinks and transferring the money online twice before the scammer called again, urging them to buy an additional 30 bottles.
Fake Letter Presented by the Scammer
Image Source : Suhashini
“After ordering the first 30 bottles, the person called again after 2 hours insisting on 30 more, and we immediately made a second deposit to the supplier. It was only after the third call demanding another 30 bottles that we realized it was a scam,” Suhashini disclosed.
She reported the incident to the police and later confirmed the fraud when she visited the school and discovered there was no such event planned. By then, the scammer had become unreachable.
“I filed a police report and spent the entire day at the station, but they informed me they couldn’t do much. There’s little hope of recovering my money,” Suhashini lamented.
Varnam Malaysia reached out to Suhashini for further updates and was informed that she had already submitted the police report to the bank to recover the money. She mentioned that there is only a slim possibility of recovering the funds, as the scammer used an innocent person’s account.
She urged all caterers and small business owners to remain vigilant, thoroughly verifying documents and details to prevent falling victim to similar scams in the future.
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