leekheechuanI received a forwarded email from my cousin ( please read below ). It seems like con artists out there are having good time cheating other peoples’ money!
As a psychology major, i observed that their con-schemes & psychological tactics they use are very good. That’s why whenever I received a suspected phone call ( whether it is the mainland Chinese accent of the caller or other reasons ) I will just terminate the call. I am aware that if I continue the conversation, i may get conned by them! ( either they are very good or I may fall into their traps – because of letting my guard down or due to my own greediness – human weaknesses you may say )
I will post more info on con-schemes and their modus operandi ( mode of operation ) on this blog to remind everyone.
====================================================
Dear friends,
The following was written by my colleague in his Facebook… he was recently cheated by this syndicate.
Please be careful if this happens to you..
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear friends,
I have been cheated recently. So I would like to share my experience with you all on how the tactic they use. You can forward this to your friends so they will know about it
1) On Saturday, I receive a phone call from AMBank, a system playback message announce that “You have outstanding balance of RM4,982 for the AMBank credit card, kindly make the payment asap. For customer service, please press 1″
(This is the first step, they make you angry. When you angry, you lost your mind)
2) Since I do not have credit card service with AM Bank, I press 1 to talk to the customer service. And after providing my name and IC number, the customer service told me that there is a credit card under my name. I respond that I did not applied it before. The customer service say is it possible that people stole your info and make a credit card from it. She suggest me to call the Bank Negara – Pusat Pengurusan Kad Palsu to make a report so that they will investigate on it. Since it is Sunday, she suggest I make the phone call on Monday and provide me a phone number 03-8659 0241 .
(This is a fake number, Bank Negara do not have such department. Bank negara number is 03-2698-8044 )
3) On Monday morning, I make a phone call to the given number, I can hear the announcement “Terima Kasih kerana menhubungi Bank Negara…” After that I talk to a guy that speak in Malay. He call me back later with the same callerID, and start to ask my detail of complain. He also keep on telling me that if what I say is not true, I will be caught by police and jail. He then ask for all my credit card detail, have I ever use credit card on ATM, my ATM card and the balance. He also told me not to expose the report detail to my friends as it may affected the investigation result. After that he give me a report number and mentioned that a colleague from other department will help me to secure all my bank accounts.
(They do this step to make you believe that they are true, so that you will corporate with them)
4) After a while, I receive a phone call from a girl, she told me that they have suspend all my bank accounts now. But the ATM card they cannot do it remotely, hence she want me to go to the ATM machine, and key in some special “PIN” to stop the card. After I reach the ATM, she call me and told me that later what I see on screen is not the true info. I just need to key in the PIN given by her. So I just follow the step and key in everything. She then ask me to destroy the transaction slip and throw it away. Then told me within 3 days cannot use my ATM cards and other bank accounts.
(Key in the “PIN” at ATM is fake also, those PIN is actually somebody account number and the amount to be transfer.)
My suggestion
Always call back to the Bank to verify, are you really have that credit card?
Bank always have a tollfree number, including Bank Negara
And you can easily find the real bank number on internet
This guy is a Senior Engineer in my office. We can easily say “hiya… how can he be so gullible to listen to the lady on the phone and actually transfer funds out of his account” BUT reality is that when it happens to you – in the panicky situation… you too may lose touch of our sanity for a short period of time..
———————————————————————————————
October 27, 2011 at 11:11 am
If anyone gave you a number that’s supposed to be an authority body like Bank Negara to call, please do not use that number. Use Yellow Pages or Directory enquiry to ask for the number to verify it. If it is different, report it to Bank Negara and/or the police.
I have a true conman story here that involved my mum and dad 18 yrs ago in KK, Sabah. Our Doberman bitch had given birth to a litter of surplus pure breed dobermen puppies. So they advertised it on the local classifieds. On the same day, a local chinese lady phoned and said she was interested. When she came, she said she wanted to buy all of them and even bargained with us. She said she had no transport and asked my parents to send her to her electrical shop (she even gave them her business card, which was fake of course) together with all the puppies. My dad was the naive type but my mum was smart and my dad asked my mum not to go as there was not enough room in their 4 wheel drive. So on the way to her ‘”electrical shop” the lady suddenly asked my dad to stop at the town vegetable market because she wanted to get some vegetables. So my dad did and when she got out of the vehicle, she said she didn’t bring any money for her groceries and asked if my dad would give lend her some money and she promised to return it when they got to her shop. My dad gave her the money and she said she would be back very quickly and reminded my dad to ask for the return later in her shop. My dad waited for her for 1/2 hour, 1 hour, 2 hour, 3 hours and she never returned and only then he realised this woman was a con. Luckily she didn’t take the puppies with her. If my smart mum was there, this probably wouldn’t had happened. My dad said he gave her RM50, but that was what he claimed, the truth could have been hundreds as that would be a great embarrassment if it was so.
The moral of this true story is, never give money to people you don’t know especially if they’re strangers unless you know where they work, live and who their family members are.