Saturday, February 6, 2016

Why I gave cash to a guy who claim that he lost his wallet

Scamming attack has been a famous trend in Malaysia for more than 10 years, and it has been evolving with many different patterns and targeting wide range of people. The method of scamming used by the people are really creative and interesting to achieve the final result of persuading the victim to give money to the persuader willingly.

I had lost count of how many people came to me with a strong sense of trying to scam my money. And only the persuader himself or herself knows whether this is a scam or they are genuine and urgently need help from others.

It happens just about 10 minutes ago as I typing here.

After walking around in the KLCC park to cleanse my mind a litte, went to Kinokuniya for some interesting reading time, I ended up hiding myself in the Avenue K's Library Coffee Bar. I was writing for another blog and suddenly this Indian guy came to me, with lots of sweats around his face but nicely dressed, ask me if I'm a local here. Without much thought, I answer him honestly that I'm a local although this is just the same type of fishy feeling as how other potential scammers approach me before, and I obviously can see that he just want money from me in the end of his story.

He sit on the chair just in front of me and start to tell me his story: He got robbed yesterday night around Ampang area when he suppose to go back to Ipoh (can't remember correctly, either Ipoh or Perak). His wallet, phone, everything was gone. He went to the police station right after that to make police report and ended up got out of the police station around 4am. He wanted to report his lost credit card or something in the bank today but unfortunately, today is a Saturday so the bank is not open, same goes for tomorrow. So he got no way to report his lost card and try to claim his money that is in the bank. He has no money at all since last night, his car's petrol is almost gone. He wish he could go back to his hometown but definitely can't make it without filling up the car petrol and pay for the toll.

He got no choice but to ask for helps from others. Before meeting me here, he went to the Mcdonald in Ampang Park and try to ask for help from one Indian guy but he was treated badly. According to him, the Indian guy scold him with harsh word assuming that he is definitely a scammer and a bad guy who want to cheat people money. That Indian guy even insulted his parent which hurt him very much. He was tearing continuously as he spoke.

He showed me a police report with his name and information. Apparently, yesterday was his birthday and the tragic happen right on his birthday. He ask me to take a photo of the police report and his picture. He need RM100 petrol fee and RM24+ toll fee from me, and he ask for my phone number and bank account number because he promise to bank in the money to my account after he got back to his hometown.

He was trying really hard to tell me all sort of things about him don't want to be any sort of cheater in his life and he want to be a genuine person. And he told me if he offended me or anything he could apologize with his knee down and so on.

I don't exactly know how much petrol fee you really need for a full journey from KL to Ipoh or Perak, I don't know if RM100 is consider too much or that's the right amount of petrol fee for the three to four hours car journey. And RM24 toll fee? I know toll fee had increase recently but I feel that it's a little too much for over RM20 toll fee. And he claim that he haven't been eaten since yesterday till now because he got no money at all, so it would be great if there is a little spare money for him to eat something.

At this point, I have to clarify something: most of his story is nothing really new and it's the same as what I had heard from the potential scammers in the past. They just happen to met with some tragic fate and they urgently need "some" cash and that's is a once in a lifetime miracle for them. This guy's story is just the same type.

If I were to assume that his story is not genuine and he just a mere scammer, I have my reasons too.

The police report is, after all, just a piece of printed paper. The real police report in Malaysia can be seen in many places, even in Google Image. It's nothing difficult to get the police logo, follow the actual police report format including all the necessary details in actual police report, type in your own content, complete the signature by yourself in any way you want and finally, print it out to look like a real police report.

Capturing a picture of the police report and him is not going to help anything. If he is actually a scammer, and he did not return me the cash that he promised after he gone off, I can post the picture in all sort of social platforms but, didn't we have it all the time? How much we are able to do to find out the scammer just because we got the face of the scammer?

Or simply, without tell him any reason, I think it's natural that I can just raise my own suspicious and just tell him off as I'm not willing to provide any support at all.

But putting all those aside and as a result, I decided to give him some cash, but not the RM100 petrol fee + RM24 toll fee that he requested, I'm only willing to give him RM50. Mainly because I only have around RM50 cash other than RM100 notes. I given him RM49, because another RM1 was gone because the Cappuccino cost RM11 and that's all I'm willing to give him.

He said that he wish that I can provide him the rest of the money because he really don't wish to ask for help from another person anymore. Probably afraid of going through the same thing as the Mcdonald's Indian guy case. But I firmly told him that this is all the money that I could provide him and he don't need to give it back to me. I wish him all luck that he could go through this and back to his hometown. He thanked me a lot and give me hand shake before he left.

I won't think too much whether he is a cheater or not. If he seriously need help, I hope I'm able to help him even it just a little compare to what he need. And if he is indeed a cheater, for a person to go against their conscience to cheat for just RM124, I feel like that's making themself too low and so unworthy of living.

I can imagine other people would call me stupid or silly for helping people because of some stories that has no valid way to prove that they are true. But well, I'm not going to argue too deep into this. Consider that I'm in a good mood today or I learn something about looking in this world in a different perspective today, RM124 is not something too major for me. I also did consider for the part if he is indeed a cheater, providing the cheater what they want could encourage them to cheat more because they think that it work, and that would eventually contribute to making the cheating trend stronger.

In the end of the day, I think we should always beware of cheating and scamming. While putting that in mind, don't forget that all of us probably would somehow fall into the situation where we need strangers help when we can't reach for our friends and family at all and they don't realize of our tragic. It's totally up to your own will if you want to help or not. Even if you don't help at all for whatever reason you have, I don't think you are being cruel or being too smart in avoiding scams.

Who knows, I might falls into the same situation in the future and I will have to beg some strangers just as he did. I probably going through the same type of experience and feeling as him in the future. If that really happen, probably I will be writing another blog post and relate this post to that in the future. But well, who knows?
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