Spam Calls

My handphone rang while I was playing golf yesterday. I quickly took out my phone from the pouch to answer the call. A female voice is on the other side of the line. She said “Are you Mr. Lim, I am from XXX bank. We know that you have a credit card from our bank and we would like to offer you a cash of RM30,000.” Before she could finish, I just said no thank you and cut off the line.

Tele marketing is becoming very aggressive these days. I receive calls almost everyday regarding all kind of products. Among the marketing of genuine products there are also many marketing gimmick to cheat your money.

I have a list of calls that I have received

• Ask to apply for a credit card
• Ask to get cash using the credit card
• Ask to do credit card balance transfer
• Ask to go for free medical check up
• Ask to attending talk regarding their holiday scheme then receive a free holiday vouchers
• Ask to attend products exhibition and give comment then receive a free gift(I think is a con job)
• Ask to do marketing survey thru phone then will send a free gift by post (never receive mine)
• Ask to collect gift for lucky draw (I gave the gift to the caller but she doesn’t sound excited)

I have also received the much talk about child crying sound. Since I did not sound panic when I heard a child is crying, the caller quickly cut off the line.

I have also received many calls from China (noticed from the number) regarding all sorts of con products. Now they are smarter by making the number private. The first thing they will ask in Chinese if you understand Chinese and I will said in Chinese that I don’t understand. They will quickly cut off the line knowing I am more cunning than them ;)

Other than receiving voice call, I also received many SMSs. Many are similar to the voice call massages. Then there are also the Con SMSs informing that I have strike lottery. I even received a SMS saying that I won RM30,000 lucky draw from Shell. I don’t use Shell petrol and the SMS is from a Maxis number which I don’t bother to reply.

Since there are control for spam e-mail, I think it is about time the telephone companies come out with control for spam SMS.