Scam kidnapping

Recently, my household has been hit by a series of scam calls.

The first was a few months ago, when I went for a Cameron Highlands trip. It was the last day of the trip (luckily), and I suddenly received a call from some private number. I didn't pick it up since I always get those irritating phone salespeople trying to sell me some stupid bonds. It rang on however, and I decided to pick it up on the second time. It was my aunt. She practically screamed at me, asking me where I am, and how come my mum is rushing out to pay some men who claimed to have kidnapped me.

So in a frenzy, I settled my aunt, and tried calling my mum. Her phone was engaged. So I tried calling my sis. Engaged too. Figured that my mum was talking to my sis. So I smsed the both of them. Minutes later, my sis called back, demanding the same questions as my aunt did. Then my mum called, and I reassured her that nothing's wrong, and that she should make a police report.

The rest of the day was spent in worrying thoughts of what would happen if the scammers decided that robbing us would be better than trying to scam us now that the scam failed.

As a result of that scam call, we changed our phone number and made it private.

The second scam call was a few weeks ago. I picked it up this time round. It was faint, as though the reception wasn't that good, and I vaguely heard someone talking. So I went "hello? hello? I can't hear you." Then the voice got progressively louder, like someone adjusting the mouthpiece. Then I heard someone crying, "(sob sob) I'm in trouble already. (sob sob.)" I didn't respond. Then he repeated himself. I hung up immediately.

It couldn't have been my dad, since it doesn't sound like him, neither does he sound like any of my friends. I was half tempted to laugh at him and call his bluff. But I decided not to incur his wrath, or we might get free pig head hanging on our door tmr.

So here's a word of caution for every of my friends out there. Such things do happen, and not only in the news. Somehow there is a greater urgency when it happens to people near us, and hence it would be good if you tell your parents about such incidents. My mum always caution us about such scam calls when she watches the news, but yet she panicked when it happened to her, and she didn't even think of calling me to verify. And don't think you are safe just because your number is private, because you are not.