I bet no one will admit that he/she gets cheated easily. NO ONE will.
According to police statistics, which was told by an police officer, Malaysians are the easiest people to get conned. In other words, Malaysians are too stupid and greedy when someone offers them something too good to be true. If you don’t believe, you can find all sorts of con cases in newspapers every day. The cheating tactics are changing and improving day by day, and a lot of people regardless of age fall on the tricks.
In fact I think we Malaysians are well-trained to be “kiasu” when we see something cheap and “free”. The philosophy is, as the chinese proverb says:”Let there be wrong killings but not miss out (有杀错没放过!).” It means that rather than missing all the offers and chances, we better grab them even it might be wrong. Consequently people will go for it if the chances are 50/50.
Psychology rules the world.
Why are we so unwise when facing such tempting cheating offers?
If you ask me, I would say part of the fault is from the education and government. Our education system does not teach us how to judge and analyse. It only teaches us the correct answers for the exam papers and what a good certificate looks like. And why the government is responsible for the con cases? It is because the government is unable to make its citizens rich and comfortable. All the poor people hope to get rich instantly so that they are able to catch up with inflation and increasing daily expenses and unreasonable taxes.
Of course there are great offers out there too, but if you do not look carefully you might end up losing all your money.
Here are some common cheating tricks that can be found in Malaysia.
1. Lottery winning. It does not matter how the drama starts, you will be offered a prize after a few minutes. However, you need to pay before you can get the prize. The con man will probably convince you that nothing is free in this world, or this is for charity blah blah blah… or even threaten you and prevent you to think wisely at that moment. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PAYING MONEY AFTER GETTING A PRIZE IN THIS WORLD. Besides that, you will also never win anything without participating in anything.
2. Ransom. The drama starts with you are unable to reach your loved ones by phone and you were told to pay ransom money to the person who call you. He can give you many reasons: kidnapping, detained by police because of civil crime or bank issues etc. Once you have paid, you will realise actually your loved ones are safe, it is just that the phone lines are occupied by the criminals and makes you unable to reach them. So if similar scenarios happen to you, remember to CALL your family to check and most important thing is GET ANOTHER PRIVATE PHONE NUMBER that only your loved ones know.
3. Work from home. Most of the people dream to get easy and earning jobs but prefer to stay at home. According to the internet advertisements, Data Entry jobs are the simplest and require minimum commitment plus no cost to set up. All you have to do is register your name and pay the registration fee before they send you a working instruction/guide, there you go! You can easily get few hundred dollars per day and few thousands per month! But the truth is they are sending you a template and ask you to post the same content like they do to cheat people for the registration fee. UNLESS YOU ARE CLEVER AND CREATIVE ENOUGH, internet advertisers like Google and Facebook are treating this kind of advertisements as scams and spams. In fact this is the best and safest trick that you can do as internet laws are not enforced in Malaysia yet. You just have to pass your conscience.
4. Multi-level marketing is not really is scam, but when the number of members increases, it might turn into a scam scheme. The theory of multi-level marketing works like this: You (denoted as A) are recruited by your upline (denoted as B) and sell certain products, and B gets % reward. But A will not get rich by just selling products. A has to recruit downline (C and D, probably more) and gets % reward like B does. So the pyramid continues to build until the bubble explodes and the top people run away with all the money, and you get nothing in the end. The reason it may become scam is after a certain time people will only focus on recruiting members. Products are just a tool to convince people that the whole scheme is not a scam. However there are still good companies like Amway, Coway, insurance companies etc. which practices multi-level marketing, and do not turn out into scam. How to identify whether it is a scam? Just attend their presentation. If more than 2/3 of the presentation is about recruiting and how to make money, then you have to be careful. The people may try to force you to sign up on spot, prevent you to think wisely like what people do for lottery winning.
Not all people will agree to what I say here, but this is what I have experienced. I had once rejected for a multi-level marketing scheme and the recruiter kept persuading me to join even I told her that I have no money to invest. She even mentioned I am losing the chance of being rich and why I cannot take out the money to invest. She might be successful after joining the party, but I do not want to spoil the future of other children by promoting their expensive but seem useless education product, unless I focus on recruiting downline like her.
So I strongly believe if you want to be rich, work hard or do something illegal. You want to do something legal to get fast money? As the cantonese proverb says:”Where got such a big female toad jumping on the streets! (边度有甘大个蛤la随街跳!)”
How about the schemes and offers launched by the governments recently? What do you think?
Posted with Prime
Some Whispers