'Do homework before investing'

NST 2009/08/25

By Veena Babulal and Suganthi Suparmaniam

KUALA LUMPUR: A search on the Internet or a phone call to check the background of investment companies could save Malaysians from losing their life-savings to unscrupulous operators.National Consumer Complaints Centre Legal Officer and Complaints Manager Matheevani Marathandan said a bit of investigation could save them a lot of money.She said about 600 complaints were received on investment scams since last year. Forty per cent of the victims were middle-income earners who did not run a background check or seek proper documentation from scam artistes peddling such schemes.She added that most neither visited the office of the company they were investing with nor obtain reports on them from the Companies Commission of Malaysia.