This was an interesting incident I felt worth blogging about and something good all of us to be aware off. After all, how often do we get to engage scammers?
I was walking from KL Sentral towards the Brickfields Monorail Station when I was suddenly given what looked like a flyer by a random person in front of the Brickfields Public Bank Branch. Curious, I tore it open (it was one of those pocket, lottery style vouchers/lotteries) to see what it was about. A second man intercepted me and told me more about their “competition”. Lo and behold! Apparently my voucher was one of the grand prizes, a “Super Bonus” marked with a Silver label. They even showed me a laminated card detailing their grade of prizes by colour with silver right at the bottom, indicative of a luxurious prize. Both appeared surprised, happy, made clear how lucky I was and shook my hands congratulating me. Skeptical, I asked what I’ve won and they referred me to an A4-sized brochure showing all the prizes offered on the left side, while the right side are 4-5 pictures of past winners posing with their prizes, some with brand new Camry’s, which is apparently a “possible” item that I’ve won.. no guarantees, but surely something expensive like a fridge, etc. In the center of the brochure were 5 participating “companies”, perhaps alleged sponsors. It even had an ISO code/rating. They told me that I should have seen this competition in the newspapers the past few days or at several shopping centres like Midvalley and Berjaya Time Square which have been heavily promoting this. I told them that I did frequent Midvalley, but had no idea of this competition. Coming back to their con job, they tried to convince me to take a taxi with them to their office in Permaisuri. I asked why they had to come along and they replied by saying that they were just agents, that they needed to accompany me to claim their own “bonuses” and that they were being watched by their supervisor nearby, hence cannot be seen letting the winners manage this “victory” themselves (like those measure they put in place in case they give these lotteries to their friends or relatives. So elaborate). They asked if I was local and if I held a local bank account and even asked which bank. I told them I had a Maybank account and they congratulated me more, explaining that this would make the prize claiming much simpler. They assured me that all I had to do is go to their Permaisuri office to collect the prize and it was quite and easy, but it MUST be today, a limited time offer to collect the prize after which it is not claimable. They pestered me non-stop to get into a cab and head off with them.
The whole thing felt so dodgy, I wanted to bring out a few softballs and go a few rounds (dodgeball). To be honest, I did feel some amount of joy in the beginning of the smallest possibility that I did win something. Who wouldn’t? I did say to my friends before that one of the only ways to ram-through the financial ceiling is by winning a big, undeserving prize and get that magical break. But logic caught up with me and I did manage to keep my greed in check.
I suspected that the moment I tore open the voucher, they moved into their standard-operating-procedure of doing a quick immediate follow up and started their own Hollywood scene of explaining, congratulating and cunning. So, now they are done explaining their crap.. it was my turn to go on the offensive.
I told them none of this made sense. Not going to explain why here in case the scammers pick up this post and correct their mistakes leading to innocent people getting conned, but basically none of what they did added up to what happens normally. I asked them why I needed to take a cab, as my car was nearby.. the quick reply was that it was even better but they still had to follow me. I made it clear that even that wasn’t normal.. what if they had a gun or knife and rob my car? I did a google search of their five participating companies.. only one existed. They countered by saying that these were only website which anyone can create. Yeah, correct.. but not saying it is there.. I’m saying it isn’t. Companies like these where got no website one?? Fail man. The next google search was my knock out punch, with the keywords “Super Bonus Scam KL”. I checked out the first search result and wow, they were so busted. Here’s the link http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/eat-drink-man-woman-16/went-kl-nearly-got-scammed-3395865.html. Apparently, they didn’t understand English (another piece of rubbish as most of their materials were in English) so I read out the entry to them, even asked up front “So, I need to pay RM6000 GST also one right?”, which they promptly and awkwardly denied. Here is another forumhttp://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1002003/+1240.
I was basically having my fun bullying them at this point.. but hats off to them for keeping their cool and not running off or breaking down and cry. They kept their poker face and insisted all of this was legit and even daring to write down his number, probably real, asking what time I would be free and if I changed my mind to call him back, that he will be still around if I thought about it and became more convinced.
At that point, they abruptly walked-off unhappily, going back to trying to con other people. Both these men were Chinese, one dark skinned around 30-40 years old while the other one was fairer and looked between 20 to early 30s – yep, pretty young. A quick read of the Low Yat forum would reveal that their office does exist and that they do give you a “prize” via collection and delivery. But whether you gain more than you paid, that’s another question.
Hence, BEWARE people. Prior to this, I’ve never heard of scams like this before (plenty of internet scams though), yet alone dealt with them, so I really thank God my brain was working when it needed to be. Anyway, since you now know.. do engage them in confidence and have a round of fun. 
How the insides of the voucher looks like
