Zunishu - Scam at my doorway

I was home early today, as my afternoon appointment had cancelled on me. I was all set to catch up on my tasks, when at about 5pm the doorbell rang.

There was a Chinese girl there who insisted that she was not doing sales and is merely doing a promotion on behalf of the company. So I went over to the gate (I didn't open it; it's an automatic gate) where she talked to me between the bars of the gate. The company was celebrating its 10th anniversary, and they were going to have an exhibition in Midvalley on 15th August. She said she's from Kelantan; mixed Chinese and Siamese blood; of Hakka dialect; studied in KL; can't speak English, only Mandarin and BM, and picked up Cantonese while here in KL. We were conversing in Mandarin and then BM (my Mandarin is extremely limited). Anyway then she showed me some envelopes given out by her company, and she said each house is entitled to two, and showed me some samples filled up by other people where some had just a "Thank You" which means they get nothing, and some had won things like a Milo tin or a Darlie toothpaste (which she claimed will be delivered to their doorstep). Anyway she said for every envelope opened, she gets RM2. Taking pity on her, I agreed to open for the heck of it, and I told her that if I win anything she can have it, which of course she said no, she can't take. Already I was wondering which stupid company would go around delivering practically worthless things like that directly to people's doorsteps.

My first envelope had a "Thank You" and then she insisted on my opening another envelope. That also had a "Thank You", but it was printed nicely in blue on glossy paper (as opposed to printer-printed normal coloured paper in the earlier samples) with a red stamp "Special Bonus" at the bottom. She seemed excited but said she didn't know what exactly it was and asked if she could come in to my house and make a call.

Red alert! There was no way I would let a stranger into my house - not after all those news stories I've heard over the past years! Instead, I took my handphone out and I made the call (FYI, number was 016-2800320). The guy I spoke to insisted that I passed my phone to the girl, so I reluctantly did, but I had my keys in hand ready to open the gate and grab her if she ran off with my phone.

Well, she didn't but here's what happened next. On the phone, the guy sounded excited as well, and told me to pass the phone to the girl so that he can tell her what to tell me. She spoke for a very short while (under a minute) before passing the phone back to me.

She was excited - too excited, in fact. Kept shaking my hand and said congrats again and again. Apparently I was now entitled to a lucky draw which I can win a Honda City. There are 5 prizes in all, ranging from a Jaguh motorcycle to the car. As she prattled on and on, I couldn't help thinking, she gleaned all this from a conversation of a few seconds on the phone?

Then she spotted her friend who was also doing the same rounds and shouted for her to come over, saying I had this special bonus ticket. As her friend came over, speaking in Mandarin/BM, she also appeared overexcited, and shaking my hand with congratulations, and the only words that came into my head was, "What well-planned act!" The problem was their execution. They were far more excited than I was. The second girl asked me why we weren't sitting inside talking comfortably, and all I did was just smile and said no.

They were going on and on... using psychological tactics like, "You could win RM12,000! Have you ever held RM12,000 in your hands??" and comparing other contests like KFC's scratch-and-win contest. Something about having my picture taken if I won the car and how I'd be in all the newspapers. Psychological tactics that have no effect on me; in fact they repel me. I wondered what trap they had set for me, and finally I cut them short and asked, "So what next?"

What next? Well, here's what they want me to do. They want me to go for the draw, but I must have RM2,800 in hand that must be paid no matter what prize I drew. So that's the trap. My hesitation (and lack of enthusiasm) must be obvious, as they kept saying things like how there are only 10 of these bonus tickets and I'm the second one to get it, and it's hard to get, etc etc etc etc. They showed me printouts of previous year's winners. They told me that any hesitation would cause someone else to win the grand prize. All I could think of was my PC in the house, which I was using to surf online before the rude interruption. So I backed away and said that I'm going to make a phone call to my father (I conveniently left out that they were not even in the country) and again the second girl implored me not to, quoting some supposed earlier case of a woman doing the same thing as I am and it so happened that her husband arrived home and chased off the reps, and one of their neighbours drew the winning prize instead and that unfortunate couple had an argument because of the lost prize (I wonder how they knew about that). As I reiterated my wish to call, she asked me, "Don't you have any power?" I said I had no money. As I made a move to go back into the house again, she implored me again not to call, at which I lost my patience and snapped at her. Before this, we had been conversing in Mandarin/BM but at this point, because of my anger, I switched into English and said in quite a hard voice, "Don't rush me."

Of course I didn't make a call to my father. I ran a quick search online and dug up a few nasty truths. I was not foolish enough to just rely on the company website; I have always made it a habit to research external sources.

I kept them waiting while I looked up some more articles, before I finally went back outside and told them I was not interested. That's when the girl said, "I told you not to call your father" and I retorted that I looked up on the Internet about something like this, and I said again I was not interested. So she helplessly said that then she can't say anything anymore, but I'm missing an opportunity of a lifetime, to which I said that I have no regrets. So thank you for your time, yadadadada... and finally the two girls walked off.

I'm not going to summarise what I feel about this scam. You readers are intelligent enough to know. Scams like these prey on greed and hope of getting something without paying for it, or paying only a nominal sum. Just like get-rich-quick schemes. I'm surprised that this company is getting away with it, every year.

The only trap I had fallen into was pity for the girl. I know that there are some genuine door-to-door promoters out there, and I feel sorry for these kinds of promoters because it's a tough job with little reward. I did sense a scam from the start, but I think it was curiosity which made me play along with their little game.

Here are some links you can read:

http://ad.contentzone.com/srv/view?site_id=28211
http://www.geocities.com/kafa25/zunishu.html

The company website did mention the contest:
www.zunishu.com.my/