IN their attempt to convert the eBeliaRahmah credit to cash, some youngsters fell victim to certain fraudsters offering the service on social media.

A university student known as Nur, 20, lost the RM200 credit in the blink of an eye after falling prey to the fake service she found on Twitter.

Nur said as she had not received a student loan, she needed cash to pay her tuition and cover her daily expenses.

Since she could not transfer the funds credited to her e-wallet, Nur then searched on Twitter for an alternative method to convert them to cash, only to end up losing the money.

“I looked up ‘ebelia service’ and ‘ebelia cash’ (on Twitter) and found that many people had done the same thing,” she said.

Nur found a user who claimed to offer the service and contacted him for the transaction.

“Later that night, after I had transferred the eBelia credit to him, he shared a screenshot with me and told me the system was busy and that he could not transfer the money to my account.

“It never occurred to me that he was a scammer, as he provided proof on Twitter that he had helped many people,” she said.

The student only realised she had been cheated when the man’s Twitter account was deactivated the next day and she still had not received the money in her bank account as promised.

Similarly, a student known as Sophia, 19, said she knew some students had converted the eBeliaRahmah credit to cash.

“This is because they need cash to buy things and they had to pay RM10 for the service. (But) they only seek help from people known for the service to avoid being scammed,” she said.

A Bernama check found many advertisements across social media platforms offering to convert eBeliaRahmah credit to cash, with varying fees of up to RM15 per transaction.

Unfortunately, besides Nur, several other recipients have reported being scammed as they never received the promised funds in their bank accounts.

The Finance Ministry, in a written reply to Bernama, confirmed fraudulent activities involving the eBeliaRahmah programme.

The eBeliaRahmah programme is an initiative announced in Budget 2023 to promote cashless transactions and ease the financial burden of youth aged 18 to 20.

The government started disbursing the RM200 aid to beneficiaries from Monday for use via e-wallet services such as Boost, Setel and Touch N Go eWallet.

The terms and conditions of the programme state that the RM200 credit cannot be converted into cash or transferred to other accounts, and that action would be taken against recipients who do so. – Bernama, July 1, 2023.