“Don’t get tricked by Malaysian fake tenders scam” businesses warned
15 August 2017
Businesses are being alerted by British Chambers of Commerce (BBC) to watch out for Malaysian fraudsters who issue bogus tenders to “lure, deceive and swindle money from overseas businesses.”
The fraudsters pose as ‘agents’ and claim to represent a government body that handles procurement or tender-related matters and have exclusive access to state, or federal, tenders and create elaborate bogus bid offers.
In scams detected so far, the fraudsters have touted ‘exclusive affiliation’ with government committees alleged to handle state or federal tenders. Several deceptive web portals have been created representing bogus committees that mimic the Malaysian Agency Procurement Board,a division of the Ministry of Finance, in an attempt to dupe unsuspecting businesses that they are genuine.
Two of the bogus websites are: http://tenderprocurementcommittee.org and http://tender-committee.com/tenders/.
The BCC says: “Supporting bogus tender and contract award documents are tailored with persuasive level of quality. They are crafted to resemble genuine government documents with official connotations and are sent to eager businesses by the fraudsters to lure them in.”
Among signs that documents are fraudulent are that in Malaysia transactions involving government contracts and tenders are NEVER quoted in foreign currencies; although the fraudsters claim to be a government committee based in the government administrative office, their website does not carry “.gov” suffix but instead a “.com” or “.org” domain; finally companies NOT registered with the Malaysian finance ministry are not allowed to bid for government contracts.
The bogus ‘agents’ go by names including Basar Trade Facilitators, where one individual goes under the name Nasir with an email address nasire@basartradefacilitators.net; another is thought to go by the name Pelita Rasa Agency Sdn.Bhd, connected with the names Erik Khan or Nathan Khan, and an email address errickkhann767@hotmail.com. Another is RS Agency for which no contact details have yet been identified.
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