Scammers burning up the phone lines!

As most of us know, our newspaper will be flooded by a lot of interesting news every day.
There are lots of scams with various cons happen nowadays. Scammers are not just busy on the internet, they are burning up the phone lines in attempts to scam people.

Here is the example of a victim who fall into a con tricks :-

Case:-
I cannot stop myself from sharing this with all of you.

It’s all started when I received a call from someone claiming that he was
from Maxis and he asked me to shutdown my phone for 2 hours for 3g update
to take place. As I was rushing for a meeting, I did not question and
shutdown my cell phone.

After 45 minutes I felt very suspicious since the caller did not even
introduce his name. I quickly turned on my cell phone and I received
several calls from my family members and the others were from the number
that had called me earlier - 3954380.

I called my parents and I was shocked that they sounded very worried
asking me whether I am safe. My parents told me that they had received a
call from someone claiming that they had me with them and asking for money
to let me free. The call was so real and my parents even heard 'my voice'
crying out loud asking for help. My parent was at the bank waiting for
next call to proceed for money transfer. I told my parents that I am safe
and asked them to lodge a police report.

Right after that I received another call from the guy asking me to
shutdown my cell phone for another 1 hour which I refused to do and hung
up. They keep calling my cell phone until the battery had run down. I
myself lodged a police report and I was informed by the officer that there
were many such scams reported. MOST of the cases reported that the victim
had already transferred the money! And it is impossible to get back the
money.

Be careful as this kind of scam might happen to any of us! Those guys
are so professional and very convincing during calls. If you are asked to
shut down your cell phone for updates by the service provider, ASK AROUND!
Your family or friends might receive the same call.

Be Safe and Stay Alert!

Scam using the cell phone!

There is a latest scam using the cell phone. A scam is to trick somebody to obtain money from somebody by dishonest means.

DO NOT LEND YOUR HANDPHONE TO STRANGERS.

These swindlers who will approach you are likely to be a female or an elderly person. They will tell you that they just got rob and need to call the police. Right in front of you, they will call 911 (the emergency numbers for the local police). They will speak loudly for you to hear that they are reporting a case but halfway through, they will pretend that the phone reception is poor and walk about 5 meters away from you with their back towards you.

All they need is 1 minutes and a tiny gadget that acts as a USB to copy your entire phone book contacts.

Then over the next few hours, they will SMS to all your contacts, pretending to be you (with your handset numbers appearing in your contact's phone). The SMS will say that you are now overseas, in trouble with the police, you cannot use your phone and that is why you are sending out SMS. You need help to transfer money to an account. Usually the amount they ask is within affordable range. Your phone will not be contactable for the few hours that they are busy sending out SMS. So your family and friends will believe you are in trouble.

The case below happened to a tourist and he reported to the local police a few days later when his friends finally manage to contact him and he learned that he was being duped. The police told him that this is an old trick that they use to target tourists and now they are moving to the locals.

To all readers, please do not lend your phone to ANYONE you do not know. If they really need help, send them to the nearest police station!

LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas)

Do you know that LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) gas cylinders have expiry dates?

LPG gas cylinders do contains expiry dates just like the expiry dates of the food that you buy, but it is best known as physical life. Expired LPG cylinders are not safe for use and may cause accidents. The case of a house fire that we get to know from the daily newspapers is mostly due to the explosion of LPG gas cylinder. The root cause of the LPG gas cylinder explosion might be the usage of expired LPG cylinder.

Therefore, it is always be safe to check for the expiry dates of the LPG cylinder each time you receive the gas cylinder from the vendor. It is also important to let your maids know about this information as well, especially for those who employed a maid so that your maid will be cautious when she received the gas cylinder from the vendor next time.

As we know there are certain irresponsible business vendors where profit is always their priority before considering about their customer’s safety. Hence, knowing the uncouth characters we have to deal with, you should insist on getting a newer tank although the vendor might give several reasons by telling that the tank is still physically new and available to be used.

Here is the information of how we can check on the expiry dates of LPG cylinders:

On one of three side stems of the cylinder, the expiry date is coded alpha numerically as follows:
A or B or C or D
with two digits number following this,
e.g. D13.

The alphabets stand for quarters: -

1. A for MARCH (first quarter)
2. B for JUNE (second quarter)
3. C for SEPTEMBER (third quarter)
4. D for DECEMBER (fourth quarter).

The digits stand for the year till it is valid.
Hence D13 would mean December quarter of 2013.

Please beware with expiry dates and return back the cylinder that you get with an expired date.

Expired LPG cylinders are prone to leaks and other hazards.

e.g. D06. This gas cylinder is valid to be in use until December 2006.

e.g. D13. This gas cylinder is valid to be in use until December 2013.