PETALING JAYA: Amira (not her actual identify) by no means thought her choice to simply accept a “free” sim card from a promoter would give her a laborious time for the following few years.

A month after she accepted the supply, Amira obtained two cellphone payments, one from the quantity she had taken and the opposite from a international quantity.

“The foreign number was registered under my name. It was postpaid and someone had been using it for about a month, making calls to Sabah mostly, and the bill was in the hundreds,” mentioned Amira.

She then lodged a police report and introduced the matter to her telco.

“I was told that the telco had received many reports from customers who received free sim cards from the same group of promoters who came all the way from Johor, but they said my case would be investigated.

“It took years. It happened when I was 19 and still doing my diploma course in Kuantan and the matter was only resolved recently when I went back to the telco,” mentioned Amira, who’s 32 now.

She had a depressing time all through the years when she was blacklisted.

Ajay Rahman, 38, shared a comparable expertise, solely that he had it even worse.

“There were two foreign numbers registered under my name and it had an outstanding sum of around RM2,000,” he mentioned.

The incident occurred in 2007. However, Ajay solely realised that he was blacklisted in 2017.

Ajay, who as soon as labored at a cell phone retailer, additionally instructed how sellers may misuse their clients’ identification playing cards (ICs).

“When people sell or lease their mobile phones, they are required to submit their ICs.

“Shop owners will either throw away the IC copy after a while, or some might even sell it to a third party.

“Apart from that, dealers will also make use of these identification cards to register a new number, especially for foreigners with no documentation,” he mentioned.

He mentioned the misuse occurred as a result of most telcos weren’t required to take fingerprints or to scan the chip on the shopper’s identification card.

Ajay managed to clear his identify following a police report and the telco itself had suggested the general public to be conscious of their identification playing cards.