I just want to share the incident that happened to me yesterday. I received a call from a woman by the name Lisa claiming she is calling on behalf of Bank Negara. She introduced herself formally and explained to me that Bank Negara is concerned for credit card users in Malaysia who overspend their limit and put themselves too deep in debt. So, Bank Negara is introducing this new "MBF Countdown Backup" card for all owners of credit cards all around Malaysia and will soon be a compulsory thing. The card, according to Lisa, will be swiped everytime a transaction is performed using your credit card and this will enable Bank Negara to monitor our spending. And in return, we will get discounts ranging from 5% to 40% for different merchants.

Then, this is where my stupidity sets in. Because she spoke to me in Bahasa Malaysia and the background noise implicates that it is a bank working environment, and above all this, she was able to readout to me my 16-digit credit card numbers and particulars and even my outstanding balance with the credit card, it convinced me that this could be a new system implemented by Bank Negara. So, when she asked for my 3-digit approval code written behind the credit card, I "STUPIDLY" gave it to her.

Then after all this was charade was over, Lisa informed me that a charge of RM480 will be charged to my credit card as a starters fee to waive off the annual fee. This woke me up!! So, I questioned Lisa on why do I need to pay for something that Bank Negara wants to implement to help the people of Malaysia (not a very noble cause). Then she explained to me that they are from a company calling on behalf of Bank Negara. And she said all the banks are well aware of this system. She then passed me over to her manager, Mr. Zakri or Mr. Z (similar to the MIB) or something. This gentleman then tries to assure me that this is not a fraud or scam.

Then after his long-winded speech about the benefits of their card (no longer Bank Negara's), I told him to hold the approval of the card as I don't need it. I told him that I will call my bank to verify this card and get back to him. He agreed to my suggestion and even gave me 2 of his contact numbers for me to get back to him (03-40422522 and 03-40424288). So, when I called both my credit card banks regarding this matter both banks told me that there was no such thing. Immediately I told that I might have fell for a fraud telephony case and wanted to cancel and suspend all my credit cards. The banks suspended my cards and agreed to send me a replacement card. Then when I called back Mr. Z at the number he gave me, a different lady attended to me and passed me on to a chinese lady who spoke in mandarin to me in a very heavy China accent. I told them that I have called my cc banks and cancelled my cards and specifically told her that I do not agree to their terms and I don't want their offer. She explained to me and assured me that they will delete my cc details and not charge me for anything. So, all this happened yesterday.

Being paranoid, I called my banks again this morning to double check if any transactions had gone through yesterday after I cancelled my card. And guess what. Those m#^*!#fkers actually did try to charge me but the banks did not let the transactions go through. I consider myself lucky coz I acted a step ahead of them.

Lesson from all of this, never ever entertain telephony offers that involve credit cards. 2 of my colleagues fell for these scams before and 1 of them was lucky enough to have the bank recognise it as a fraud case while the other 1 lost RM3000. So, SCREW ALL TELEPHONY MARKETING STRATEGISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I heard of this happening to one of my friends as well. But she didn't fell for it. Is this common nowadays?

you could've caught it there and then.. what would a federal banking authority want to do with a commercial entity?

even CTOS/CCRIS don't keep your pin-code/authorization code..
it's sad that ignorance have made you poorer.. learn from it and and take it as a learning 'fee'.. an expensive learning 'fee'.

it will remain 'common' as long as there're gullible people out there..
rumour, hearsay, ignorance, etc.. these are all the perfect concotion for a con-job.

Pretty common as they are not only credit card marketing, even have calls from "high court" that someone who need to pay, again, with a very china mandarin slang.

As well as those sms thingy saying you got jackpot but need to back in "processing fee" lol.

Since when our goverment servents speaking mandarin?

oh, before you set on to "screw" all the telemarketing folks out there..
do yourself a favor..

make sure you set your own "screw" inside your head correctly.. before you "screw" others..

blaming others for your own inequity is equally foolish.

I agree with you. It will remain very "common" as long as the public is not properly aware of these scams. I knocked my head against the wall yesterday thinking of how stupid I was . But they caught me at a good time coz I was halfway preparing presentations and all and my brain was too occupied with many other thoughts. Lesson learned.

i disagree with you about focusing on 'stupidity'.. don't beat yourself up for a wrong cause, it's not about stupidity..

as mentioned by you, you did rationalized the situation.. thus, you've acted with some level of deliberation(aka thinking)... on the other hand, stupidity is the lack of it.

however, what you've rationalized wasn't adequate(enough).. thus it's more of a case of ignorance..

"you don't know what you don't know"... that's a blindspot.
if you choose "you don't care/want to know about what you don't know"... that's ignorance.

there're lots of good reading material out there that teaches you to understand/spot a con-job.. reading it is better than hearing from others.

credit card are not dangerous.. the owner is.

I totally accept all criticism with a open heart, and my best guess is you must be a telemarketer.

Anyway, the reason I started this thread was to warn others about this scam. Many of us are not well versed with the commerce and banking world. So, we're unaware of how the system evolves. I would encourage more advice rather than flaming (although I totally deserve it) me and please keep criticism to a minimal level.

Hmm, who might be the culprit that divulged your personal details to these crooks?

Well, according to my friend who works in Citibank, there are personnel who actually sells information to outside agents. This actually creates a doubt in me regarding the confidentiality of my details with the bank. But hey, we can't do anything about it unless we don't liaise with the bank at all.

Just keep in mind, never disclose your 3digit code to other people. If the call is from the bank, they will know the 3digit code and won't ask you to tell. For verification, they only will ask, what's your mother name, what's your IC, what's your hp number, etc...

don't guess.. let me tell you straight.. i'm not in the telemarketing business.
i learnt alot of good lessons(with minimal damage) when i saw how fluid, dynamic and cunning scams works.. during my stay abroad.

once in awhile, you'll get breakthrough/new permutations of such scams.. i'll study and pay attention to their mechanics and how they operate.. usually it's via a pretext and lots of smoke-screens

i'm glad that you treat this as a lesson.. just don't be bitter about it and bash the entire industry(telemarketing)..

on a hindsight.. it's difficult to know everything about the finance/banking fields.. but there're a few principles that you can use to help protect yourself..

reading back at your own tread... do you realized that it raises several red flags already? i may not know all the rudiments of finance but i will act upon those red flags.. that's my living principle..

you can have your own principle(s) too.. trust me, it helps build awareness and knowledge.

hmmm recently i received 2 calls in two different hp number from a chinese lady with heavy mandrin accent... i think i dun understand her well and thus nothing is communicated... where all this ppl get out numbers and more importantly credit card details... i tot we as cc holders do have some sort of confidentiality assurance from the bank???

even so why did you gave the 3 number pin ah?

Like I mentioned before. She has managed to convince me that she's calling from Bank Negara. That's why I gave her the the 3-digit approval code. So, it all comes down to the question of how did they manage to obtain my details.

Yeah..There is always people calls and ask for your credit card details. For me, I just stop them and just hung up without letting them finishing their line.

If it happen to me, normally i play around with the caller, just to waster their time with me instead of with unsuspecting user who didn't know this kind of trick, but giving false 3 digit number of course

I also nearly kena the same thing.

This ppl. are very convincing, they even know my credit card number, but I refuse to give them the 3 letter CGC (i think) numbers.

Details can be bought. There are people selling it. You got bills to pay? Yeah, someone inside will extract all the customer information and sell it to the public.