SERDANG - To be famous is to always be hunted by scammers.
According to actress Diana Danielle Danny Beeson this was the price she had to pay for being well known.
"If I want to summarise how it feels to be well known, I'm always hunted by scammers," she said.
Diana who was also recently appointed as an Anti Scam Ambassador shared this as a panellist during the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) Integrity Sustainability, Cultivation of Integrity in Higher Education Seminar, here on Tuesday.
The famous actress said there was a time where she and her management were almost involved in a scam.
She explained she was fortunate as they sensed something off from the actions and the forum became a stage for her to share it with participants to ensure none would fall for scams.
"I remembered my whole team almost became a victim of a scam, it’s important for me to provide awareness not only to myself, but to my team as well because they hold the access to my social media account. What’s important is that this is a reminder for all of you as well.
"My Instagram account had three million followers, and my Facebook has two million, I have to inform this as it’s valuable and if an individual took my account, it could be sold at a high price due to my capacity, as an actress and artiste, I could not only ask for an RM100 loan, I could ask for RM50,000 to RM100,000,” she said.
Other panellists on the forum include Sinar For Malaysia Foundation (Rasuah Busters) CEO Nurhayati Nordin, Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (UIAM) Ahmad Ibrahim Law Faculty lecturer Professor Dr Ida Madieha Abdul Ghani Azmi and Sentul District Police Commercial Crimes Investigation Department (CCID) Division chief who is also the Anti-Scam Ambassador Assistant Superintendent Rahmat Fitri Abdullah.
Diana said she was now more careful in replying to customer e-mails and would identify the parties before negotiating with them.
"If a scammer uses my identity, it will personally affect me, my name would be damaged, that’s why based on what happened, me and the team are now more careful as not everyone is working honestly and with integrity,” she said.
She touched on how she maintained integrity values in herself despite being a well-known figure and said integrity must be instilled in oneself and it must be consistent with good deeds performed to avoid getting caught up in corrupt practices.
"I think this (integrity) value must be in our souls, we must instill it and remind ourselves often on whether are we proud of ourselves and our actions that’s in relation to integrity,” she said.