Now I just got a phone call from a Malay chap that claims to be calling from the customs office. He first called into my office and my staff picked up the phone. He sounded quite rude asking to speak to the director of the company.
Well, since he said so, there is no reason to doubt him at this initial stage. So the call was passed to me.
After the initial greetings, he started asking me if I am doing any import exports.Dude, if you really are from the customs, shouldn’t these data and facts be at your disposal?
I said yes, and he proceeded to tell me that we all should help each other and make each other’s life good. I was like WTF? Why are you telling me all this? So he proceeded to tell me about how often we should be in touch with one another so as to make import and export smooth.
At this point I was beginning to wait for a chance for him to pause, which he eventually did, so I could ask him, “Are you really calling from the customs office? If so, what’s the purpose of this call”?
I was beginning to think if he was going to frame me for smuggling illegal drugs or sexy underpants worn by Japanese porn stars into Malaysia.
Apparently not…. Guess what. He wanted bicycles from me. 20 of them! I bet you must be thinking. Bicycles?! From me? To the customs office? What in the world would they want bicycles from me man? I didn’t know the customs office are going all out to be green these days. Sounds refreshing.
Apparently they had a sob story behind. The customs office is going to organize a charity event for the poor kids of Malaysia and they want us to donate money or goods to them. He proceed to quote me the price of a bicycle. RM250 per bicycle which is equivalent to USD70. Wow, he even had his market research done for him.
Then he said this: “Well… you know… you can sponsor 10 or 20 of these to the kids. I’m sure they will be happy”.
Well at that point, there were a list automatic responses circling the barrel of my mind. Such as:
1) Er… “F U”?
2) Why not you give me the 20 bicycles instead? The economy’s kinda bad.
3) Would you be interested in 20 BMW 7 Series instead of BMXs?
4) Would you like last week’s fries with that?
5) How about some pink ribbons on them bikes?
6) Would you like your bicycles in solid gold models or you’re upgrading to platinum like our 5% of elite customers?
but I held back, because I’m polite you see?
I mean he might have my office address and decided to come here and paint my office in pink polka dots if I pissed him off right? I mean, I don’t want my office to look sissified and girly. So I just politely declined any participation in his charity event and wished him luck.
So if you ever got a call from someone claiming to be from the government or anything like that, never ever believe him. He might be a crazy loon who wanted to feel powerful and get money from you at the same time. Just look at the cases of fake policemen raping and robbing people these days on the news and you will understand that you can never be too careful these days. Well, just as I thought there were no more scams, more came. This blog is beginning to look like a scam report website.