Friday, May 23, 2008
F*** the China Scammers!
This morning was an extremely dramatic morning, like crimewatch. My mum's cries awoke me and disrupted my beauty sleep. My mum was on the phone with someone and sounded very serious. So upon hearing more, the person on the line claimed to be a loan shark and have captured my brother who helped his friend to be guarantor of a 25k loan. My mum even heard someone (which happens to sound like my brother) crying over the phone, screaming that he got betrayed by his friend. The "loan shark" tried a lot of "pattern" to scare my mum, warn her not to tell anyone and report to the police. Of cos, my mum asked me not to make noise in the background. When my mum told him that we cant raise such amount in the short time, he started hurling vulgarities and started to bargain down to 1k and then to 300 bucks. After a while, he insisted that we shut the windows to prevent anyone from hearing the conversation and on her phone, leaving it there just to make sure there's no noise or someone in the background. He told my mum to remit the money to a place in Beijing using Western Union. By the way, he claimed his surname is "Jian".
From the conversation and the fact that he was very loud over the phone, things got really suspicious.
1. He claimed to be a loan shark and his boss is from China.
(Woah! I didnt know loan shark operations has extended to China and they have a base there!)
2. His accent, bad english pronounciation and refusal to speak Hokkien when my mother spoke Hokkien to him, he is 100% confirmed a Chinaman.
(Infamous for their phone scams. What else? The Land of Fakes... now ah long also fake.)
3. He asked for money to be remitted to a China address.
(I thought loan shark come to your door for money? Now so advance use remittance to China one leh.)
4. He asked my mum where we stayed and of cos, telling him is quite pointless cos' he is a Chinaman.
(I thought loan shark will have copy of the guarantor's IC?)
5. He asked my mum how long will it take for us to go from our house to Bt Timah. And i asked my mum to bluff him 45 mins.
(He believed. LOL. Chinaman mah...)
6.After calming down my mother, i asked her clearly if she confirmed it's my brother voice over the phone. Did the person mention anything about his name?
(The rule of thumb: always check whether they know the name of the "son" or not!)
7. He seems really desperate for money from his bargaining. Desperate ah long. LOL.
(I thought loan shark got loads of money? Why so desperate even for 300?)
So after all the threatening, uttermost important thing was to locate my brother. His hp was engaged and my mum doesn't have his office no. So i practically have to call up his school (for his IA records) and all the branch offices of his company to look for him. The school doesnt have his records (which I thought is so unbelievable) and they claimed that their system cant hold too much information and even if he just graduated this year, the school could have gotten rid of his records. We called the office and the office girl refuses to help and claim no such employee. In the end, we have to make the trip down to his office while on the other hand, lying to the loan shark that we are heading down to remit the money. Thank goodness to another office lady who helped us call the main branch and we managed to get my brother on the line!
Basket! Cheat people also dont know how to cheat! I was incessantly cursing like crazy after the whole scare. I was soooo pissed! Thank goodness I was around. If not my mum could have remit the money he wanted.When he didnt receive the money, he started calling again and there were 31 missed calls on my mum's hp! Persistent idiots!We went to the police to make a police report and while we are talking the policeman, that scammers called again. So i got the policeman to have some nice chat with him. Haha! The policeman was so darn funny. The policeman bluff him that he's my mother's son and questioned why he(the scammers) claimed that he was kidnapped. The policeman went on to say," you know whose her son or not? Policeman leh.". The Chinaman was obviously stunned but he remained very persistent. Still making a last attempt and retorting loudly over the phone that we are lying, the policeman shouted back at him and this time it really scared the shit out of the Chinaman. Damn! I should have picked up his call and fool him 10 times back.
I dont know how the police is going to follow up with the case, with so many China scammers around, i bet the no. of victims who got manipulated emotionally and fall prey are plentiful and many might not even be reported. In fact, this kind of scam is so common and very classic. Either your son is kidnapped/in hospital, need money etc. The policeman even told us that these scammers can even call up the police post to try their scare tactics. haha! So dumb! These scammers are either brainless or they have no parents/kids.
Since these Chinaman likes to cheat so much and "role-play" like loan shark, I would strongly encourage them to watch some Ch8 dramas to learn the modus operandi of our Singapore loan shark. Some even tried to act kind and claimed to raise funds for the Szechuan earthquake victims, making use of their countrymen's poor plight to carry on their scams. Simply Fuckers!
Labels: Crime
