KUALA TERENGGANU, Oct 2 — A retired teacher lost RM201,900 after being deceived by a fraud syndicate through a phone scam.

Kuala Terengganu district police chief ACP Azli Mohd Noor said on August 31, the victim, a 65-year-old woman, received a phone call from an individual claiming to be an employee of Ampang Medical Centre.

He said the suspect informed that the victim who is from Cendering, here has an insurance claim of RM68,800 but she was denied.

"The suspect asked the victim to make a police report on the grounds of misuse of personal information.

"However, on Sept 24, the suspect contacted the victim and instructed her to open an account at Agro Bank with a deposit of RM5,000 supposedly for the purpose of monitoring by Bank Negara Malaysia,” he said in a statement here today.

Azli said the suspect then instructed the victim to transfer money amounting to RM201,900 from her hajj fund account to the newly opened Agro Bank account.

According to him, the victim who was suspicious and felt deceived told the incident to her son who went to check the balance with Agro Bank yesterday.

"The inspection found that the victim’s balance was only RM100 and that there were 20 transactions of money from the victim’s account to an unknown bank account.

"The money is from retirement compensation and the victim’s savings,” he said. — Bernama