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April 15th, 2010
Beware of con jobs!!
My mom was approached by some conmen today, but fortunately she didn’t get conned. Here’s what happened to her.
My mom was going to the morning market at Taman Megah, and was going to get a parking voucher for her car when a man approached her. Speaking in Cantonese, he asked my mom whether she knew of this “famous” Chinese practitioner who could cure all kinds of illnesses. He apparently wanted to buy some herbs from this practitioner, as the Chinese medicine shops he went to didn’t know about the herbs he wanted to buy. This practitioner apparently operates from his home which was somewhere nearby. He doesn’t advertise, and it’s only through word of mouth that people know him.
Then as a woman walked by, she heard the conversation and she said she knew about this practitioner. She said he can cure all kinds of diseases. She pointed vaguely in the direction of the house, and the man started walking there. My mom was of course interested to find out more, so the woman offered to bring my mom over.
They walked towards the badminton hall in Taman Megah, and caught up with the man who looked a little lost, as if he didn’t know which direction to go to. So the woman offered to lead the way, and suddenly around the corner another lady came and apparently recognised the first woman, and started speaking to the group. They called the practitioner “ah yeh” (which means “grandfather” in Cantonese). The second lady was like, “You haven’t seen ah yeh for a long time, he’s asking why” (all in Cantonese), and asked who these “other people” (the man and my mom) are. The first woman said, “My relatives” and later told my mom and the man that ah yeh does not allow anyone to just go and see him, they are supposed to meet on appointment or if they are relatives of the people he knows. The second lady said that ah yeh was busy now because his granddaughter had given birth to a premature baby (7 months) and is praying over the child and taking care of him. However, she will go and see him and see if he is willing to meet new people.
So she walked around the corner of the badminton court which my mom found odd because she had expected her to walk across the road to the houses. My mom knew the area quite well, and where the lady was walking to, she’d have to cross a big drain to get to the houses, but there’s a fence and no bridge to cross the drain.
They stood there talking, and after a few minutes the lady came back to the group. She said that ah yeh had looked in a “mirror” and said the first woman had lied to him. The man had left his house with the intention of meeting with ah yeh, but my mom did not. Ah yeh said that the man had problems (can’t remember what my mom described) but my mom is having serious problems. Apparently my mom is being haunted by a ghost child who had died at a traffic accident and followed my mom when my mom stopped at a traffic light. This child wants to be reborn and will cause the death of someone close to my mom.
My mom of course panicked (wouldn’t you?); she felt faint and had to sit for a while. Then both women started talking to her, like she needs help and kept asking my mom, does she know anyone who can help? She needed to go to a temple to pray and find some senior there (>80 years) to help, etc etc etc. They said that ah yeh can help my mom, and he doesn’t need any payment. All he needs is for my mom to visit him often as a friend after that. They said that my mom would need to list out all her properties and jewelry and money so that ah yeh can pray to protect all of them. The man started thinking and he said aloud, “I have RM32,000 in the bank.”
It was then it suddenly struck my mom that it was a con job… why would she need to say how much she had? And they kept pestering my mom about jewelry. My mom acted dumb saying she doesn’t have any jewelry and showed that she was wearing none. They asked, what about at home? And they told her that she needed to act within the next 3 days. They told her she would need to bring her jewelry and wrap in newspapers and bring for ah yeh to pray over. They assured her that she can take the jewelry back (but who’s to know they wouldn’t do a quick switch?). They also told her that she must not tell anyone about this ritual until it was all over, otherwise it wouldn’t work.
Fortunately my mom had read enough in the newspapers about these tricksters, and just kept playing dumb. All she wanted to do was get away from these people. Finally when they realised that they weren’t getting through to my mom, they said, “If you don’t want, nevermind then.” So finally my mom managed to get away and the three of them walked off in the opposite direction.
My mom related the story to my dad afterwards, and my dad was like, “You should have called me!” He said he would have gone over and made a citizen’s arrest. But my mom didn’t have her phone on her.
I’m just really glad my mom came out of it unscathed. The consters of course acted so smoothly that any victim or would-be victim wouldn’t have realised it was a con while it was being conducted. It must have been scary especially to be told that someone near you was going to die soon. Just sharing this so that all of you will be aware… just be careful!!
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