[Top: Johnny Chow (L) showing the photograph of "Charles".]

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: A woman was cheated of RM2,000 when a man claimed her son had been kidnapped and would have his hands chopped off if she did not pay a ransom.

In reality, her son had merely followed the man whom he had recently befriended, to KLCC and then Johor Baru.

The woman, Ng Soon Ai, said her son, 21-year-old computer science student Johnny Chow, had befriended a man named "Charles" through a "phone-pal" advertisement in a magazine on Christmas day.

The man, who claimed to be a designer, came to stay with Chow's family in Pandan Perdana on Dec 31.

On Jan 5, Chow and Charles went to KLCC where the latter asked to borrow the former's mobile phone.

Chow said Charles had told him he wanted to send a text message to his aunt to ask for some money.

"He also asked for my automated teller machine card, telling me he had asked his aunt to deposit the money into my account," he said yesterday at the MCA Public Services and Complaints Department.

However, Charles had actually sent a text message to Chow's sister telling her a loan shark had kidnapped Chow and would chop off his hands if RM6,000 was not deposited into Chow's account by 1pm the next day.

The price was eventually brought down to RM2,000.

Chow said while they were at KLCC, Charles suggested he followed him back to Johor Baru for a holiday.

"We arrived the following day in Larkin at 5am and checked into a hotel. Later in the morning, he suggested we watch a movie at City Square before heading to his house. But halfway through the movie, he left and never came back," he said.

Chow was stranded with only RM2, so he called home for help. It was then he found out what had happened.

Department head Datuk Michael Chong advised the public to be careful with pen-pals and new "friends".

"Do not easily trust people whom you have just met," he said.

-- New Straits Times

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