Sing the ‘free’ bait to cheat the public

KUALA LUMPUR: We often hear of people who are duped into falling for all kinds of offers dangling words like “free”, “cheap” or “gift’’.

Those people behind the so-called offers are, in truth, predators who are adept at ensnaring their prey. In short, they are nothing but outright cheats who are out to make a fast buck from their victims.

Not long ago, a woman called me on my mobile phone and said: “Madam, you are being invited to attend a free business course. Capital will be provided for your business which will definitely be profitable...” I curtly told her I was not interested and cut the line.

Two weeks later, I received another call. “Hello, you are Madam ... and you’re the owner of .... Where are you based now?” the male caller asked. I was stunned how he knew my personal details and even the name of a company I had registered in my name.

The calls kept coming, despite me telling them that I was not in the least interested in what they had to offer.

Most of the calls were “invitations” to attend various courses, seminars and conferences - conducted free of charge, of course.

Soon, I gathered that the callers had obtained my personal particulars from the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM). I also found that a number of my friends who have businesses registered with the CCM had also received similar phone calls.

I kept wondering how so many parties could gain access to other people’s particulars through CCM. Not wanting to cast the commission in a negative light, I consoled myself by thinking that maybe CCM wanted to do small business operators a favour by giving them a potential client list.

More recently, I received a phone call purportedly from a staff at the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) inviting me to attend a meeting in Penang. Apparently, the ministry had nominated me as one of its “aid recipients”. Well, this was what I was told.

When I pressed for more details, the caller said the ministry would give me a plot of land in Kelantan for an agricultural venture.

I was baffled why the MOA would want to give me land when it was quite clear that I had registered a company to provide editorial services. What was more astonishing was that my company had been inactive for more than five years.

Anyway, the caller informed me that I would be required to cultivate date palms on my plot and that the MOA would provide me with the date seeds. All these without me spending a single dime!

The offer not only sounded preposterous, it simply did not make sense to me. Why, specifically, dates?

I then called a friend who was an officer at the ministry concerned and told him about the “offer” I had received.

He promptly dismissed it as a scam. “Our ministry has no programmes of that sort,” he informed me.

In fact, he said, the planting of date palms was prohibited in Malaysia as the trees harbour the red palm weevil that can potentially harm our oil palm and coconut plantations and cripple the industries concerned.

(Date palms have been banned from being brought into Malaysia since 2015.)

According to the officer, the authorities had received many complaints from people who were misled after receiving similar offers. Some of the scammers even produced certificates that had the ministry’s logo stamped on them.

Imaginary land schemes aside, we also have tricksters organising seminars, courses and functions and luring their victims with so-called free holiday packages, haj packages and even property offers. There are so many swindlers out there carrying out all kinds of fraudulent activities to generate an income or to get rich quickly.

And, not to mention all those online businesses operated by con artists.

What they would do is offer terrific deals and they would make use of social media platforms to hunt for potential victims. The presence of these black sheep has made it difficult for bona fide online traders to survive.

The typical modus operandi of a fake online trader is having many social media accounts and changing their identification and telephone number frequently.

Then, there are those entrepreneurs who suddenly emerge online, complete with office, staff and a list of products to sell.

The minute a customer gets a whiff of their fraudulent ways and non-existent goods, they would vanish, leaving their poor staff in a lurch. By then, their “boss” would have already struck gold and are probably living it up, before moving to another location to swindle others.

Internet users, therefore, ought to be wary when carrying out transactions online, whether through web sites or social media sites. Following the rising number of cheating cases involving online businesses, the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumer Affairs often urges Internet users to make doubly sure that their transactions are genuine before making any payment.

I also have to mention that of late, a new trend has emerged in online transactions where the buyer cheats the seller using various methods and modus operandi.

Since cheating is so commonplace these days, what has become of all those human values that we have been treasuring?

(This commentary is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect BERNAMA’s stand or views on the matter)