If It’s Too Good To Be True…It Probably Is!

The subject of this post is one golden rule you should bear in mind in the fight against scammers. 

In Malaysia there are already quite a number of scams ranging from ‘Scratch and Win’ to ‘Winner’s Circle’ etc.  It will only be a matter of time before they make their way here…..or they could already be here?! see one such example of how they do it….

Modus Operandi

A man approaches you with a pamphlet of which he request that you open it up immediately, he will sound excited telling you that you have won a mystery prize. He will even make a few calls to prove that he is not a fraud. The other party whom he calls will ask you a few questions such as:

• How many pamphlets did you receive? He just wants to ensure that the staff who was with you does not cheat him.
• What colour is the circle that is printed on the pamphlets? Is it blue, green or grey? If it’s blue or green then you do not need to go to their office to claim the prize as these 2 colours only entitles you to specific discounts if you spend a certain sum of money.

The guy who approached you is by then very excited and begs you to go to his office to claim the prize so that he can get his share of commission and he also promises that the whole process will only take 30 mins.

When you reach the office, they’ll probably tell you that you’re entitled to 2 gifts from the list and they are only agents helping the brands give out “samples” as gifts for customers to try out. They’ll make a call to another person whom they claim is their sponsor, to tell him that they have a winner. They will even pass the phone to you to “make it look genuine”…. They may even claim that the sponsor does not trust them entirely and hence needs you to answer a few questions:

• Do you know the person who handed out the pamphlets to you?
• Are you related to the person who handed the pamphlets to you?
• How many pamphlets were given to you?

After the call, the guy in the office tells you that you’ll need to pay for the newspaper advertisement for the free gifts. In order to proof to the public that someone did win the prize, this will only be a relatively small sum of money. They will then ask you how you want to pay for the advertisement and If you tell then Visa or Mastercard then…..

They might claim that they do not have the credit card machine in the office and hence will need to go somewhere else (which is very near from where you are) to swipe the card. They will tell you not to worry, as they will get a staff to drive to the other location in a matter of minutes while you wait in the office with them.

They’ll make another call, asking for a “special” device (which can be used to know what you actually won) and the other free gifts to be delivered to the office. The guy will suddenly sound very much more excited claiming that their sponsor says that you’re entitled to 5 mystery prizes, since no one won the previous month. So if you managed to win the “Toyota Altis 1.6” You will be entitled to 5 “Toyota Altis 1.6”. This will make you even more curious as to what your mystery gift is. However in order to get the 5 mystery gifts, you’ll need to pay another RM 10,455.00. And again they will ask for your card.

Here are a few of the names they go by….

Nabinco Network Sdn Bhd
Welley Corporation (M) Sdn Bhd
Glotron Marketing
 
Some websites that have been started as a result of their scams….

http://welleywatch.heritage-tech.net/tags/feedback/
http://www.consumer.com.my/message/index.php?query=welley&amount=0&blogid=1

So what can you do? Well you should do this at the very least…….

1)Lodge a police report at the country where the incident happened
2)Lodge a complaint with the tourism promotion board of that country

For cases with regards to Goldtron Marketing, you will have to lodge a police report in JB,enclose the police report and email it to the Consumers Association Of Subang & Shah Alam, Selangor (CASSA).

konsumer@cassa.org.my
cassacrimebeat4u@cassa.org.my