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A growing number of Malaysians are sharing accounts on social media of losing thousands of ringgit after being deceived by a work-from-home job (WFH) scam that exploited a buy-now-pay-later credit facility to extract money from victims.
The posts, which surfaced on Threads over the past two days, show victims displaying SPayLater balances — Shopee’s buy-now-pay-later service — with outstanding bills ranging from RM7,244 to RM8,174, while their available credit had been reduced to single digits.
According to victims’ accounts, the scam begins with a job advertisement promising work-from-home positions with salaries ranging from RM1,000 to RM3,000.
Once contacted, victims are assigned “tasks” and instructed to make upfront payments via SPayLater, with promises of reimbursement that never materialise.
“I wasn’t trying to cash out from SPayLater. I was trying to pay for the tasks,” wrote one user, n.asmh, in a post that has since drawn nearly 4,000 likes and 670 comments.
Yes, I know it was my own mistake.
Another user said she had been repaying her SPayLater debt for two years following a similar incident.
Warnings Already Circulating
These cases reflect two overlapping types of scams that have been circulating for years.
In the first, fraudsters post generic WFH job ads — with no mention of Shopee — and lure victims into paying for “tasks” using SPayLater.
In the second, scammers go further by directly impersonating Shopee staff or claiming to represent the company, contacting victims via WhatsApp, Telegram, or SMS with similar task-based job offers.
As far back as 2021, Shopee Malaysia had publicly stated that it does not recruit employees through messaging platforms and that no role titled “Online Purchasing Agent” exists within the company.
Shopee has also clarified that it will never ask for upfront payments as a condition of work.
In both types of scams, the perpetrators are impersonating or exploiting the brand — not acting on its behalf.
Shopee has an in-app guide titled Online Shopping Safety Tips 2026, produced in collaboration with the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN) and the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM), which lists job scams among the threats it warns users about.
Shopee is not the only company they mimic; these same syndicates frequently run identical WFH scams on other social media platforms, using them as primary hunting grounds to lure victims.
What Victims Can Do
Scammers are skilled at making fake jobs look real — and when someone is already stretched thin financially, the promise of easy income from home is hard to ignore.
If you suspect you have been scammed, the first step is to cut contact immediately — stop replying, and do not click any links or scan any QR codes the recruiter may have sent you.
From there, check the suspicious phone number or bank account on the police SemakMule portal before taking further action.
Then lodge a police report and call the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) at 997 — the hotline operates 24 hours a day.
You can also report the fraudulent account directly to Shopee through the in-app customer service function.
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