BALANCING STATE INTERVENTION WITH PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Ultimately, as 86 per cent of total reported scams involve self-effected transfers, personal responsibility is the best way to prevent being duped. This includes keeping up to date with latest scam tactics, and being vigilant over too-good-to-be-true online deals.
Such an approach is already being in the process of being implemented for phishing-related scams.
The proposed Shared Responsibility Framework sets out the various roles that financial institutions, telcos and individuals play in ensuring that people do not fall prey to phishing scams. Victims of phishing scams may only claim their losses from the financial institution or the telco if either of them fail in their duties under the framework. If their duties are complied with, the individual will then bear full responsibility for his own losses.
Similar principles ought to apply for self-effected transfers. We shouldn’t need the police to persuade us that we are being scammed, much less to issue restriction orders on our bank accounts if we cannot be persuaded.
With extensive public awareness campaigns and other proactive measures to combat scams, the responsibility for self-effected transfers must ultimately rest on the individuals themselves.
If a potential victim cannot be persuaded by the police to stop a particular transaction, that victim ought to have no complaints if he is eventually scammed.
After a while, there comes a point where police intervention must cease, and personal responsibility must take over. The million-dollar question is: Where should this line be drawn?
Mark Yeo is a Director at Fortress Law Corporation. He was formerly a Deputy Public Prosecutor with the Attorney-General’s Chambers.