OznAsia

Here’s a story of yet another internet scam. Not so long ago I received a similar letter from a facebook friend—someone who is a friend of a friend and who I have never actually met in person. It never occurred to me at the time that it might be fake. I thought to myself ‘he’s got a hide’ and sent an email saying I couldn’t help out at the moment. In this particular case the person was asking for US $2,500 because he’d lost his wallet in London.

I look at it this way, assuming the request was genuine, if someone is asking for something from me that I would not consider asking from them then I have no reason to feel bad about rejecting the request. When I travel, I do it on the cheap. If I lost my wallet, even in London, I doubt that I would have been carrying $2,500 in it. I can live for a long time on $2,500. I doubt that I would ever need to ask anyone to transfer $2,500 to me and if I did I have a relative who handles my finances in Australia. If that relative got such a request I think they would know if I’d written it. If the writing style was different they should be suspicious. There is no one else I would ask. And certainly not someone I’ve never met.

If you follow the link above to the article I’m referring to, read the comments. There are many suggestions of ways to avoid this sort of thing happening. Most importantly, don’t trust your information to facebook. I’ve written before about not giving sites access to files on your computer. Facebook and many of its subsidiary applications request access to your files. Don’t allow it. Get a life. Find some other way to communicate with people.

Labels: facebook, ripoff, scam

My visit to India is over. India is indeed incredible as the campaign claims. There are so many aspects to India, in one month I was barely able to scrape the surface. Perhaps one day I'll return but for now I'd like to revisit my preliminary blog Anticipating India.

Voluptuous and sexy women? Perhaps they exist but the India I saw was quite conservative. Indian women generally dress quite modestly. Saris and variations of them are designed to cover not reveal. However women wear them with style. I enjoyed the bright colours of Indian traditional dress. And a beautiful woman is still a beautiful woman without revealing all.

Enlightened beings? I have never in my life met someone who I could say 100% is an enlightened being, not in Australia, nor Thailand and not in my one month in India. Do they exist or are they the subject of legends? I don't really know. If they do, perhaps they are there in Australia in the same proportion as they are in India but having a much greater population, India may have a greater number just as they would have a greater number of charlatans. As for finding enlightened ones and separating them from the charlatans, let me know if you are successful.

Lofty principles? I'm sure they exist among some of the population. What stood out more for me was the poverty. Perhaps for a vast number of the Indian population their principles are based on the need to find enough food to survive the day. Perhaps it is up to those who have the luxury of lofty principles to address the issue of the great disparity between rich and poor in this country.

Shit in the street? I have been to another extremely poor country where I've seen more evidence of people using the streets as their toilet. However, in India, with the large number of holy cows that wander freely one still needs to be careful when walking in the street.

Bag stealing on trains? I didn't do a lot of train travel. I encountered no problems. Hey, I still have my passport : ). Perhaps we need to be careful wherever and however we travel.

Honesty in business dealings? I've already written about one hotel where they charged over the quoted price. I encountered one travel agent who charged an exorbitant booking fee and had all sorts of reasons to justify it. I didn't believe them. Quoted prices in India often do not reflect the final price. Considerable taxes may be added and people are not always upfront about this. Apart from this, I found the vast majority of Indians I had dealings with to be open, honest and helpful. I believe it is time that more emphasis was placed on these people. Instead of promoting Incredible India perhaps the government tourist authority should be promoting Credible India. How about a campaign to ask travellers to dob in someone who was honest and helpful? I'm sure there are many of them in this incredible country.

Labels: Asia, India, poverty, ripoff, scam, travel

Where do you get your news? I don't have a TV set in my room and I don't buy newspapers these days as I get my news on the internet. I've been exploring and comparing many of the news sites on the web and hope to make a few comments in future blogs. Right now I want to point out something about information you may or may not be getting about Burma/Myanmar.

Yes, on Western news sites there is some coverage of the plight of the Burmese people since Cyclone Nargis. Today I discovered, on a site created by exiled Burmese journalists, allegations of the constitutional referendum being rigged. Some Western news sites are saying that the referendum has received a 92% yes vote. But so far I haven't noticed anywhere, other than Asian sites, claims of blatant vote rigging.

Assuming the allegations are true, government officials stayed up all night before the election, under orders, voting 'yes' on most of the voting papers. When citizens arrived to vote the next day they were simply told to sign to say they'd voted and were sent home.

It seems the generals may have simplified democracy. What a wonderful idea—don't bother to vote, we'll do it for you.

Labels: Asia, Burma, censorship, Myanmar, news, politics, ripoff, scam

I go to daily Khmer lessons with a young woman who is capable and intelligent. While chatting, Esther mentioned a particular organization that for the sake of this blog we shall call XYZ. Esther said she would love to work for XYZ but she didn't know if she had the right qualifications and if she did she couldn't afford to pay the bribe that would be required by the interviewer.

I was shocked. I am aware that paying a bribe to get a job is commonplace here in Cambodia and also Vietnam. In fact, while I was in Vietnam I watched a movie that told of the challenges a young woman faced when she was refused a job that she had qualified for because she either couldn't or wouldn't pay a bribe to the interviewer. In this didactic movie the young woman set up her own business, faced the challenges—yes the interviewer comes back later in the story and attempts to sabotage her efforts—and eventually succeeds. The fact that such a movie was made, perhaps by a government film studio, shows that this practice is endemic in Vietnam. This is also the case in Cambodia.

But XYZ is a huge international NGO. If I mentioned its name, you would more than likely be quite familiar with it. I expressed to Esther my shock that such an organization would allow such practices to take place. I went on to say, that if she applied for a job with that organization and was refused a job that she would otherwise have got because she couldn't or wouldn't pay a bribe then I would be prepared to take the matter to the head of the organization in Cambodia and if that didn't result in the interviewer being sacked that I would take it to the international media and that it would be very embarrassing for XYZ.

Esther then backed down and said she had to admit she had no knowledge of this practice within XYZ. This was simply her expectation. I assured her that the international reputation of XYZ was far too important for them to allow such practices to take place and that if they advertised a job she was interested in and qualified for she should apply in confidence that she would be able to win the job without having to pay a bribe.

The point I want to make is that it is the expectation of this practice that makes potential job applicants give up before they even start. Why apply if you are not going to get the job anyway?

How it works, so I'm told, is that the usual interview process takes place and the best person for the job is selected. They are offered the job on condition of payment of the bribe which is an amount equal to one or two months salary. If the best applicant can't or won't pay the bribe, the offer is made to the second best and so on down the line. Perhaps it is the sixth best applicant who finally comes up with the money. Can you imagine what this does to the efficiency and effectiveness of government and other agencies where this is practised?

I go back to my point that many potential applicants give up before they even start. Why apply if you can't afford to buy the job? There is a similar belief when it comes to applying for a scholarship. 'Why bother?' said a very intelligent student of mine. 'All the scholarships will go to students who have family working in the education department.' This may or may not be true. The point is that it is believed and young people who have much potential give up and waste their lives doing something way below their ability.

Until countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam rid themselves of such practices they will never reach their full potential.

Labels: Asia, Cambodia, money, poverty, ripoff, scam, Vietnam

I recently received an email inviting me to 'Desktopdating'. It came with the name of a friend on it but not from my friend's email address. I was interested to see what 'Desktopdating' is so I clicked the link that said 'Accept the invitation'. The page that opened is shown in the picture here, except that it had my full name and one of my email addresses filled in. As you can see, it is asking me to enter my password for my email addresses.

Now, why would I do this? Why would I give my email password to a site I am unfamiliar with except they were able to send me an email with my friends name on it?

If I give this site my password, they will have access to all my private emails. If I have mail stored from a bank or other financial institution they can read it. The can get access to all the addresses in my address book. They can also log into my account as me and use it to send spam. While it says 'Your information is 100% secure and protected. We never share your information or spam', I do not trust them. Why should I when they ask for information that they have no reason to request except to use it for purposes that could be harmful to me and others?

I forwarded my friend the email that came with her name on it. She replied that she was surprised that I had received the invitation as she had not authorised it. This confirms for me that this site is not above board. If you receive an invitation from them or any other site that asks for any of your passwords other than the one to that site do not proceed. If you already have, I suggest that it's time to change the password on your email account.

Labels: scam

At my guest house I got talking to Sarnta who is from Lithuania. She has a friend, another traveller, who is Norwegian. As far as I can remember, this is the story that the Norwegian woman told to Sarnta.

She met some people in KL and was given the story of a daughter visiting Norway and could she come and reassure the mother that the daughter would be safe there. She went.

After she had reassured the mother, she was given a nice dinner and was introduced to the father. He works in a casino dealing cards. He asked the Norwegian if she would like him to teach her how to cheat at cards. She said she wasn't interested as she never played cards. 'No, it's OK. Just for fun.' he said. So she goes along with it. Next he says that there was a man coming who is from Brunei. He had had a big win at the casino and now they wanted to win the money back. 'Would you like to join in, just for fun. You don't have to put up any money.' Once again, she goes along with it. She's not putting up any money. She has nothing to lose.

The man from Brunei is apparently very rich, is very well dressed and wearing expensive jewellery. They start to play. He starts to loose and she starts to win. At one stage there is about $US50,000 sitting on the table. Most of it would be hers except she didn't put any money up in the first place. The man from Brunei needs to leave but he is returning in an hour. After he goes they put it to her -- if she can go to the ATM and draw out $7,000 and put it into the game, she can keep half the winnings from the next round. She stands to win quite a lot of money. She tells them that there is no way she has $7,000 in her bank account and asks to be excused. They take her back to where they picked her up and she is safe.

This scam is not particularly Malaysian. I know a man who had a similar experience in Bangkok. His drink was drugged. He lost a considerable sum of money.

After a friend read my earlier post he pointed to a story that his brother wrote after a visit to Bali. It's a good read -- maybe required reading for all travellers. You will find it at http://www.geocities.com/joekarnt/ . From that page click on the 'Joe in Bali' link and from the drop-down menu 'Death story'.

Labels: Asia, Malaysia, ripoff, scam, travel

I have been to the movies a few times since I’ve been here in KL. I find that if I go in the morning I get the theatre almost to myself. I’ve seen ‘Water’ a very powerful Indian movie that I highly recommend and I saw ‘Bridge to Terabithia’. When I was involved with children’s literature, Katherine Paterson was one of my favourite writers. It is good to see that one of her most popular books has been made into a film and one that I find completely satisfying. Don’t worry that it’s a kid’s story; see it anyway.

One of my friends here in KL asked if I’d seen any Malaysian movies. I hadn’t because they all appear to be rather weird horror stories. Not my cup of tea. My friend recommended ‘Mukhsin’. I was assured it would have English subtitles so the day after I wrote my previous blog I went off to the cinema to see it.

This time there were about 30 people in the theatre. I’d say about 90% of them were women and all but one of them were wearing headscarves. I found myself sitting next to a middle-aged woman who was sitting next to a younger woman, perhaps her daughter. After I’d made myself comfortable the woman turned to me and commented that she was surprised to see a westerner watching a Malaysian movie. I told her that it had been recommended by a friend. We chatted for a while pleasantly. She didn’t have a daughter visiting Australia and I didn’t get an invitation to meet anyone or play cards. I am pleased to acknowledge that not all women in Malaysia are like the ones I wrote about in that previous blog.

The movie was not particularly sophisticated. It told a simple story of a friendship between a boy and girl, just old enough to show some tentative interest in the opposite sex; not all that different a story to the one in ‘Bridge to Terabithia’. Perhaps the acting and the storytelling was not up to what we in the west expect, however it was quite charming and at the end I felt satisfied.

I’m told this is the third film written and directed by Yasmin Ahmad and apparently the others are in some way linked. I look forward to seeing them if I get the opportunity.

Labels: Malaysia, movie, Mukhsin, scam

This is my third visit to Malaysia. Altogether I've spent about seven months or so here. I've had ample time to observe the way Malaysians behave differently from people in other South-east Asian countries. One example is that Malaysian women do not initiate conversation with strange men.

In Thailand or Cambodia if I happen to find myself sitting on a bus next to a woman I've never met before, it is quite common for a conversation to ensue. In Malaysia, even men don't usually chat under these circumstances.

It is therefore memorable when one, two or three women initiate a conversation. This has now happened to me three times, always in KL. And three times, after some friendly chit-chat, a story was told of a sister visiting my country and of a mother worried about her safety and would I mind meeting the mother and reassuring her that the sister is safe.

I'm aware that this is a scam. It's documented in the Lonely Planet guidebook. I'm aware that, should I try to help, I'll probably be invited to join in a friendly card game, be given a spiked drink and end up losing a considerable sum of money. Obviously, I don't take up the offer.

The fact that this has now happened to me three times in a total of no more than two weeks in KL suggests a number of things: this practice must be happening fairly regularly and it must often be successful; otherwise why would it continue?

This can't be giving Malaysian tourism a very positive image.

The question I have to ask is: why haven't the police stamped out this scam? I assume it's illegal or believe it should be. And if I can find these women so easily (or they me) why can't the Malaysian police?

Labels: Malaysia, ripoff, scam, travel