A woman’s dream of finding love turned sour when she was left pregnant and her mother was cheated by a “Casanova”.
Samantha Ho, 36, from Simpang Renggam, Johor, met the “Casanova”, 40-year-old Looi Hong On, via a dating app in September 2016.
She said that in the beginning she was suspicious about his trustworthiness but he requested that they met up to get to know each other. He asked for a chance for them to be together and promised that he would not cheat Ho.
Last February, Ho, a promoter, relocated to Kuala Lumpur, moving into Looi’s home in Kepong.
She found out she was pregnant a month later and Looi, who reportedly works as a bakery chef, promised to marry her as soon as possible.
However, in April, he claimed he was facing financial difficulties and asked Ho’s 74-year-old mother for help. He even drafted an agreement and Ho’s mother lent him RM76,000 upon seeing the return on the interest rate was quite high.
“I always suspected he may not be trustworthy, I never trusted him 100%, but when I wanted to break up with him, I found out I was already pregnant,” said Ho at a press conference in Wisma MCA on Thursday.
“I also advised my mother a few times not to trust him so much and not to let him know the amount of savings she had, but she still revealed it to him,” she added.
Apparently, Looi later asked Ho to move back to Johor and took her mother’s ATM card to withdraw a further RM15,000.
Looi issued a couple of cheques to “return” her mother’s money and made up excuses when they bounced, before disappearing four days after the couple’s daughter was born in December.
Ho was later visited by debt collectors who claimed that Looi owed them RM215,000.
A debt collector asked Ho if she knew that Looi had borrowed money from a few loan sharks and he had been using a woman’s name with Ho’s house address.
Looi had also used the addresses of a woman in Penang and another in Johor for his loans.
“However, my mother still believes that he will come back and return her money,” Ho said, adding that she wants to prevent more victims from being duped by Looi’s charms.
MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Seri Michael Chong said the modus operandi of “Casanovas” was to strike up friendships with women and reel them in by telling them sad life stories.
Chong said that he had to deal with 20 similar cases last year.
“I want ladies to be careful of all these sweet talkers. We have received similar complaints from three ladies this month,” said Chong.