Nearly got Scammed.. All chinese-Beware!!

Few days ago i received a call from an unknown lady...the way she start her conversation was very weird, being that i am in Australia.All the conversation was converse in mandarin.

The lady: Wei..?????wei???wei???(in mandarin)
Me: Helloooooooooooo.....???helooooooooooooo??? heloooooooo???
The lady: Can you speak mandarin??(ni hui jiang zhong wen ma???)
Me: Heloooooooooooooooooooooooooooo??? heloooooooooooooooooooooooooooo???
The lady: Can you speak mandarin???
Me: Helo? ??
The lady:(still insisting) can you speak mandarin?
Me:erm...
The lady: Oh..you can can't you..? my name is bla bla bla, i'm from a travel agency that will soon be based in northen queensland. I'll like to ask a few question regarding your opinion.
Me: *blur blur due to her thick chinese accent and my poor understanding of chinese*
The lady:If you were to given a holiday package for 3 days 2 nights with your family to an island and it is below USD300, do you think that its worth it?
Me: Hell ya..!!
The lady: May i get your name for the completion of this survey?
Me: ok (thinking that its alrite so i gave them a fake name) name is Lau chuean lay.
The lady: Oh, thanks for your participation on this survey Ms Lau, right now you are eligible to enter into one of our biggest lucky draw in sydney, that will be held at 'Wan Lau' hotel.
Me: Sorry come again....wahlau hotel?? can you tell me what address is it?
The lady: Er...i'm not sure myself, cos i'm based in china right now, but its near to which which which building which which which complex and which which which room.
Me:*half ignoring* oh ok...ic
The lady: We will have a function there and the phoenix TV will show up as well. Before that i'll give you your lucky draw number. Its AB9815 ok? ok?
Me: ok (watever)
The lady: Thanks again for your participation bla bla bla.


2 Days later
*ringgggg* *ringgggggg*
Me: Hello???
The lady: weiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii?? weiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii??? Ms lau ma????Ms LAu???
Me: *still have half awake* yes??
The lady: Oh, its me again from the travel agency that you participated the surveys from. Did you or did you not attend the function?
Me: Er...no
The lady: Aiyaaaaaaaaa....no wonder la.....we've been calling your lucky draw number AB9815 sooooooooooooooooo many times but no one come up to redeem the prize..
Me: huh??? izzit oh...ok, what was the prize that i won?
The lady: Fuiyooooo, its our biggest second prize, a travel fund of US$15 Thousand dollarrr...
Me: *blink blink* ooooo......really...Wow
The lady: You know , this is very lucky.Congratulation.You can go to our website and check if it is you or not. go to 3wdot H jay T aro E asse O Ar T dot com (http://www.hztresort.com/)
Me: ya ar...oh ok..
The lady: Then go to contact us, and click on the last line says redeem price, then key in AB9815.
Me: Oh ok...
The lady: Did you get it? is it you?
Me: Ya ya...
The lady: Congratulation.......can i get some of your detail so that i can send the money to you directly from our HK bank account.
Me: *got dazed into fantasy* ok sure sure

So i've given them my name in english and bank details and my ID.Thinking that it could be real.


The lady: ok, i'll fax the detail now and they will soon transfering the money to you, if there is any problem we will call you back
Me: ok ok

So now..on my bed..i'm like *dreaming....cars...nice LV bags...gucci shoes...my own apartment in kl..Holiday*

Then my Bf was saying its a scam la...don't put so much hope in it...only i realise that hmmm ya..this could be a scam.


1st of all, she didnt know my name at 1st until she asked me if i can speak mandarin, who the hell in the world that calls sydney line and expecting them to speak chinese, Unless they have our data with our near to chinese names and target us.

2ndly, the Wah lau hotel. I've asked sooooo many frens in sydney, none of them know where is it or neither of them heard of it. hmmmm fishy...

3rdly, everyone knows that if you won a prize it will take ages to send it into you account and needed lots of verification and face to face procedure.

hmmm..now that i've think of it, it is getting more and more fishy. Then my Bf told me to read kennysia's blog saying bout the similar situation happen to him and have a look at what he did to prevent it.(click on his name to go to the site)

The same thing that i did what he did, I went to check out the domain from whois.com

And guess what???

A webpage that is barely a month old are able to pay out USD150 000 dollars for lucky draw??? this is so bullshit. Whats more their phone number registration is 888 88880, WOw.....damn fatt


I was like, thats it...if they call up again i'm gonna play along with them.


So the next day itself, some guy called me name (lin ya lun) but i dont know much with chinese so i wrote lin ya tyre.

He was asking if all my verification is correct cos right then he is with a lawyer that needed all identification to be verified and all. So i say yes its true.


A while later he had a phone call at the background, and no one was answering it. Then i remember him telling me that he had a lawyer beside him, why cant the freaking lawyer answer the phone call?? nvm...giving them the benefit of doubt, he might not have the authority to asnwer the phone call.



But funny thing is that when this tyre guy asked me to hold on for a sec and he picked up the call, he was basically having 2 phones occupying his ears and speaked very clear into my receiver as tho he purposely wanting me to listen what he conversing on the other line. Hmmm, a professional telemarketer would have known that if you were to hold onto other call, you should not let the other receiver to listen to your conversation with others, It is the rule of thumb. Further more it is IMpolite. sigh*...its ok..giving them the benefits of doubt again, that this tyre guy is inexperience from china...nvm nvm...



Then...conversing half way..another call comes in, this time i am listening to his conversation with others, and surprisingly it is something to do with my account in Aust, so he got back to me and say that the money cant go through due to some problem that the government in australia bla bla bla...i wasn't surprise at all, because i've already expected that its a scam.
So he was surprise that why my reaction wasnt as what he expected to be. I was calm to say, Its ok, take your time...lol

Then he started to say that i had to put on some deposit as a bond to secure the prize, I said, take it from my lucky draw money and you can keep the money as long as you want, I'm in no hurry.

His voice turned funny, asking me if as tho i distrust him for taking the bond for his own puropse. I said, i do not mind if the money did not reach my hand(in fact i do....cos i felt conned)
He got angry on the phone and started scolding me for disrespectful towards his manner of being 'so nice' to handle all the things for me (ya rite) and at the end he got such a treatment from me.

*i was ignoring him already*


Then he just said, " since its this way then there is no point we continue this conversation. So be it"

Me: ok...buh byeeeeeee...


Right at the moment, i was laughing my ass off. Then i search on scamwatch.gov.au for any news about new scammer in town and found this.



Telemarketing scam targeting Chinese community
SCAMwatch is warning members of Australia's Chinese community to beware of scammers posing as market researchers from Hong Kong.
SCAMwatch understands that scammers are cold-calling Australians with Asian-sounding names and asking them to participate in some market research. The scammers tell many stories, but often say they are considering opening new branches of their electrical, investment or travel businesses in Australia.

hmmmm....sound sooooo familiar
i called scamwatch hotline and reported my incident to them and they were very happy to hear that i did not send any money to them, however, bout my bank account details, i had to close it and reopen a new account for security purpose and i'm more than happy to do that.

Right after that incident, i called home and tell my mum bout it, surprisingly she was laughing at me and said that she too had the same experience in malaysia.
the best part is my mum said this



random caller: wei?? wei..?? ni hui jiang zhong wen ma??
mum: Harloooo??? siapa itu?? u mau panggil siapa???
random caller: *tooooo.....toooo....tooooo*
mum: *tee hee*



i should learn more from her.. ^^