Scam No More a.k.a Gerak Khas The Movie 3

I'll start today's blog by attaching some email excerpts between me and a scammer who cheated me last Friday. My conversation was in blue and the scammer's in red.

-----Original Message-----
me wrote:
Hi,I pm you in nogold forum. Your offer still valid? Let me know

Regards,

-----Original Message-----
From: Intan Camelia Nuzrad [mailto:mrsmrimran@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 9:07 AM
To: me
Subject: Re: Buying E-gold

yes, 3.70 because i am selling the profit... you interested?

me wrote:

yes...tell me how to proceed

-----Original Message-----
From: Intan Camelia Nuzrad [mailto:mrsmrimran@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 10:38 AM
To: me
Subject: RE: Buying E-gold

You can deposit to Maybank accountMohd Roslan bin Md Isa 162209941080. Please paste your transaction in email... how much would u buy?

me wrote:
how much is available...btw can I have your contact no pls.

-----Original Message-----
From: Intan Camelia Nuzrad [mailto:mrsmrimran@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 10:58 AM
To: me
Subject: RE: Buying E-gold

i have USD570... but willing to sell usd500.... call me at 019-3213372

That was how it started. Then some calls were made and the following converstion follows:

me wrote:
ok as spoken I will buy USD 500 of egold....total RM payable is 1,850

my egold account no: xxxxxx
my egold username: xxxxx

I will transfer the money shortly and will sms u. Tks.

-----Original Message-----
From: Intan Camelia Nuzrad [mailto:mrsmrimran@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 11:36 AM
To: me
Subject: RE: Buying E-gold

i have to check first ok... THANKS...

Guess what happened after that! Tried to call but got the message that the no is not reachable. I tried to be calm and went for Friday's prayer. Went back to the office at about 2.30 and tried calling again. Got the same message. Started to smell something fishy and went thru the email conversation. Suddenly I realized how stupid I was. The real/genuine owner of the email is mrmrsimran...this guy tricked me by using mrsmrimran instead. Cunning bastard!

So there goes my RM1,850! Went home a bit frustrated and reluctantly drag myself to play futsal that nite. After the game we chit chatted and being me I just had to tell everybody about it. Luckily one of my buddy told me that he has somebody who can trace the details of the account holders. He emailed me the details on Saturday (i/c, phone and address).

That night I had to become Inspector Gadget. Called another buddy who lives nearby the scammer address and we decided to go to the scammer's house. Guess what? Based on the address, the scammer lives on Jln. Dahlia but when we reached there, there were Jalan Dahlia 1 to Jalan Dahlia 11! And all the 11 Jalans has the scammer's house number. Great! We spent almost 2 hours looking for the right house but to no avail. Tried to call the fixed line provided but no one is answering. I checked with Telekom and found out that the number was registered under a Company. Hmmm...at least I found some lead. Will call again on Monday.

Monday morning. Dialled the number again and to my delight somebody answered the phone.
"Hello, can I speak to Mohd Roslan?'' Just a moment pls...was the reply. Ah ha gotcha. But to my surprise, the voice at the other end didn't sound that familiar...after a few minutes of interrogation I found out that this Roslan guy was just acting as a 3rd party to the actual scammer. I went on and pressured this guy, telling him I'll make a police report against him because as far as the police is concerned he was the account holder of that transaction. He pleaded to me not to lodge a report and will ask the actual scammer to refund my money. I gave him 12 p.m. deadline.

Subsequently I received this email:

-----Original Message-----
From: Intan Camelia Nuzrad [mailto:mrmrimran@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 9:49 AM
To: me
Subject: RE: Buying E-gold

sorry beb... aku tak niat nak scam ko sebenarnya... cuma aku terdesak sket nak pakai duit... so ko boleh tolong aku tak?skrg ni duit tu dah ter"invest" dalam program hyip kawan aku...budak melayu...dia confirm tak scam... website dia... http://www.prestigehyip.com ko boleh monitor...nanti aku akan pulangkan dengan profit sekali... dalam masa seminggu...boleh tak? roslan tu kawan aku.... aku pun penah kene scam usd1500 gak...tapi report polis memang tak layan laa... tapi kalau ko nak report gak.... memang duit tu skrg dalam investment...dan aku akan pulangkan beserta 20% profits...tolong reply

Damn. I'm amazed with this guy. This was my reply:

-----Original Message-----
From: me
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 10:12 AM
To: 'Intan Camelia Nuzrad
Subject: RE: Buying E-gold

ohh dah mcm ni baru ko nak reply...ko jgn nak mengada2...uncle aku keja kat cawangan jenayah perdagangan Bkt Aman...so kalau aku report si Roslan & ko sekali kena. bak balik duit aku RM1,850 ...end of story aku bagi ko masa sampai 12 p.m. Ko bagi aku profit 100% pun aku tak nak!!!

Aku tau ko pun pakai acc. Suryani Edris kan...aku dah ada semua detail minah ni i/c no, phone and address. So kalau ko tak nak perkara ni babitkan org lain baik ko pulangkan balik duit aku...ingat deadline 12 p.m.

About 11 a.m. I received a SMS from Roslan asking me to check my account. To my relieve, a total of RM1,800 was deposited back to my account. But still tak puas hati. Short RM50. Its not about the money, its about the principle. I guess that's the price I have to pay for this lesson!

I will go all the way to nail this scammer. There are a few others who got scammed by the same guy and based on the various acc. no. used. I'll help them to track down the owner who are related to this guy. Watch out (in case u are reading this)...Crime doesn't pay!

Signing off at 11.30 p.m.

What A Week

It has been more than a week since I've updated my blog. What an eventful week. I was practically sick for the past 2 weeks. Too much futsal I guess. Flu, fever, sore throat, coughs etc. I really had this funny feeling that my wife could be pregnant. The same thing happened before. Prolong sickness, constant vomitting after lunch and when we went for a checkup..."congratulation...your wife is 4 weeks pregnant!" I'll confirm this next week when I send her for a checkup. This could be the symptom of pregnancy...ha ha.

On a separate note my friend got scam in the internet...again! This time it was for the purchase of e-gold...yeah typical case...transfer money to the scammer's account but didn't receive e-gold in return. I manage to get the scammer's account no and will get the help from another friend to trace the address and particulars. I was speaking to my old friend this morning and his advice was to make a police report and send a letter of demand to the culprit. Btw, he's a lawyer and has offered his help on this case. It's nice to have a circle of friends who seem to offer their sincere help when u are in trouble. In Malaysia, it's not the question of what u know but rather who u know! And I completely agree with this. Ohh btw, my lawyer friend is representing Malaysia in the Lawyer's World Cup to be held in Turkey. Good luck bro.

Nothing much happening in the bond market. Players are practically selling now so bond prices are technically oversold. Interest rates will continue to go up and there is limited opportunity to make money in this environment...especially when u are managing the investment book. I would suggest to those who bought unit trust to switch their portfolio from bonds to equity. The prospect of the bond market doesn't look promising this year.

Last but not least I had to write about MU's failure to win last nite match against Sunderland...ha ha. My futsal buddy told me last nite that MU will win 5-0, Chelsea and Liverpool to lose this week. In your face bro!!! So I guess the race for second is wide open again...provided we win at Ewood Park on Sunday. Ok la guys...damn tired...need to get some sleep... played futsal again this morning after a two hour session last nite...am I addicted to it?

Signing off at 2.50 p.m.

The Priceless Plastic

Technorati Tags : credit card, statement date, interest free period, credit card optimization

I was not feeling that well today. Sore throat, runny nose, headache...all the usual suspect. Maybe I should take a MC tomorrow. Anyway, as promised I'll be sharing some secrets in optimizing the usage of credit card. It's not really a secret but most of us tend to overlook this in our credit card statement. The Statement Date!

So who cares about the statement date. I believe the first info that we look into a statement is the amt. outstanding, min. payment and payment due date. To most of us the statement date is useless. A typical revolving user (i.e. those who's not paying the full amount) will only pay attention to the min.payment and the due date. So, here lies the secret...

In Malaysia, all credit cards users are given an interest free period of 20 days from the statement date up to the due date. The statement date will never change for a credit card. For example, my Visa card statement will be printed on the 25th day of the month. That means my due date will either fall on the 13th or 14th of the following month, depending on the no. of days in the statement month (could be 28 to 31 days). In summary, the statement will capture all transactions dated between 26th of the preceeding month up to the 25th of the current month. So if I charge my card on 24 April, the transaction will be captured in April statement and the sum charged is payable on 14 May.

Here's the trick. I will delay all my card expenses a day after the statement date (in this case, on 26th). Therefore, the transaction will only be captured in next month statement dated 25 May and my due date will be on 14 June. So effectively, I'm enjoying a 50 day interest free period i.e. the no. of days between 25 May and 14 June! See the difference?

Some may be asking...so what? I'm just delaying the payment and at the end of the day I'll be obliged to pay the same amount. I may also lose control on my budget and use the money meant for the payment elsewhere. Rite...those are the pitfalls but I believe the pros totally outweighs the cons provided u have the discipline to make full payment on the due date.

I have been applying this concept to my autosurf programs. It works well for Compact Surfing (13% for 9 days) due to its fast payout....btw for ease of calcultion, I'll ignore the minor egold charges in the following illustration.

26th April : I charged USD1,000 to my card. Invest the money in CS.
4th May : First package expired
6th May : Received payment amounting to USD1,170 and reinvest
15th May : Second package expired and earned USD1,369
17th May : Received payment and reinvest USD1,369(3rd round)
26th May : Third package expired and earned USD1,600.
28th May : Received third payment and reinvest USD1,600 in the fourth and final cycle.
6th June : Final package expired and earned USD1,872
8th June : Received final payment of USD1,872

I'll then convert the egold to cash (this normally take 2-4 days). So on 14th June (my card due date) I'll pay the USD1,000 and have USD872 as profit. Spend half of it and reinvest the other half. Now, I'm not using my own money...I'm just reinvesting the profit after securing back the capital. So I'll be not at loss if the prgm collapses in the future (hopefully it will stay).

A word of caution. This will never work if the prgm goes kaput between 26 May to 8 June. That's why you have to choose the stable and reliable program such as Compact Surf

And for those who are not keen in AutoSurf, u can apply the same concept to your monthly utilities bills. Don't pay cash. Settle the bills by credit card a day after your statement date and keep the cash in ASB or bank for 50 days. So u'll earn 50 days interest from the bank, albeit much lower than Compact Surf but still u are effectively using the "legal ah long's" money to your advantage. Pretty neat isn't it. But make sure u settle the full amount otherwise u'll be charged interest on your outstanding balance. Discipline is the key.

Ok la enuf ramblings on this priceless plastic.

Signing off at 11.45 p.m.

Present Value of A Child

It has been a while since I've updated my blog. Too busy I guess plus a bit of laziness as well. Last week I was sent to a 3 day course conducted by this Aussie gentlemen. The title of the course is Modelling Yield Curve Using Excel. At the start of the session, we were asked to introduce ourselves in the form of name, current role, objective of attending and also no. of child. I was initially surprised by the last info. What's a child got to do with this course!!

We were later thought about the time value of money. The concept of present value, future value, annuity and what not. From a lay man's perspective, a dollar today is not equal to a dollar tommorrow and vice versa. So, the instructor ask us on the expected cashoutflow per annum of a child from he/she was born until they reach an independent age of 21. Obviously the outflow increases when they grow up. We projected a total of RM1.1 million over that 21 years. Cost includes basic necessity such as food, clothes and education (assuming no scholarship) and also inflation factor. Then we had to present value the future outflow to today's value and calculate the amount of saving we had to make in order to meet the outflow.

Here's come the surprise. The result was astounding. For that amount of casflow, we basically have to save about RM8 thousand per month. Yes not a typo ...8 thousand per month!!! Is he nuts! I guess not... The exercise made us realize how expensive it is to nurture a child. Of course some would say money is not everything but like it or not this would surely be applicable to most of us.

This was really an eye opener for me personally. Can I save that much money. Bear in mind...8k per child per month. What if we have 4 children. Thats a crazy 32k per month. I'm sure I can't save that much...not even half of it. But at least I'm aware of it. Thank you to that gentlemen. Oh well, the points I 'm trying to get accross to my blog readers are the following:

1. Save first then spend.
2. Maximise your opportunity.
3. Don't afraid to take calculated risk.

I'll be writing soon on how can u maximize on your credit card spending.

Signing off at 12.45 p.m.