The Pandora Agent

It’s your gateway price to Buenos Aires, it’s the stone touch that might heal cancer and Alzheimer's, it’s a guilt that left you option less. These people tickled the right spot with the right pressure, set the right temperature and do the dirty talking. It definitely shoved you to the tight spot: irresistibility.

It an SMS which you do not receive by chance on casual Sunday morning. My mobile buzzed for reason, but this time it brought surprise metaphorically speaking like pelican dropping through the chimney a bundle of cloth which contains a cute little baby. It sounded not verbatim like this “ SIM kad anda me-manangi RM10.000 me’lalui peraduan Petronas Malaysia. Untuk maklumat selajutnya sila hubungi 01X-XXX-XXXX “

Wow! Don’t mind about the crooked bahasa and decimal points. I’ve won RM10,000! Who would bring such joy on moody and slow Sunday morning filled with boring chores and round home maintenance job when this SMS came knocking on phone inbox with this kind of news! I would surely be proud and actively loving on Monday laughing my way to the bank! Collecting my reward!

Nothing sarcastic against odds of your SIM winning an out-of-nowhere lucky draw. In times millionaires popped out of nowhere and economy seems to slump where people are wary to purchase stuff; would you want to be the one who walked up the Volkswagen showroom and purchase a spicy red Golf GTi for yourself and a Passat for your parents, plus a Beetle of honey yellow flavor for your Ashley Tisdale wannabe little girly sister? The salesperson would be walking while leaking pee coming out soaking the socks imagining the commission that would be shoved into their a..? We are inspired by lucky stories with their out of world way of getting to fortunes, continuously dilating the flimsy possibility of ‘being rich out of thin air of luck’ into larger portions far away from realistically it deserves.

Yes, we do not buy what people say in advert stuck on an electric post or public phone post. There must be someone that we approached or approach us. They were the one which sweet talked, light the aroma candle, pour the honey, sprayed whipped cream and made situation seems like once in a blue moon. The con-men a.k.a the confidence men ( in some situation, women too ) . They were so confident that most people fell for what they said. They are confident because they seem to exploit things that we likely to falter. In times when determination runs to the last bit. They come like an ‘angel’ from the sky and provide help of different kind that sometimes defy convention. Yet, we go for it, as we only had hope left.

For instance, the stories of someone whom had a dying family member, or they themselves being diagnosed with a life threatening disease. I’m sure most of you have heart about ‘healing magic stones’, which is being sold with a large sum of money, that could cure chronic diseases which scientist themselves were struggling to de-cryptify the curing strain. Do some simple preparatory process such as soaking the stone with lime water, drink the water, repeat ever night before sleep and walla! You’re set to be as prime candidate of Amazing Race season 12! The con-men approached and exploit our grieve. Our fear of death. Our concern over health.

The most elusive and subtle exploitation over our healthcare deep concern can be seen in formula powder milk. It’s the kids whom drink that milk. The scientific jargon they used that sound illicitly intelligent. Exclude DHA and AHA, the other form of words which twists our tongue, the likes of fortidefenda, IQboostra and Growth-crapsputnik . All seems to be like an afterthought of the marketing department. Which perhaps has no hands in the development of the formula itself, but forced these jargon into the throat of new dad’s and mom’s. It’s the breast milk which is proven helpful and beneficial. But the added advantage of these additional eclectic formulas shall make tots as wickedly creative as Andy Warhol or as annoyingly speculative as George Soros, metaphorically acted by cute little kids on the adverts. All exploited out of parents concern over children health priority.

Stories of scratch & win and their multiple sub-species that vary in modus operadi are exposed in almost all major newspaper nearly each day. But the feeling of greed, sometimes just outspoken rationality and logic. Like a devil that stood on the left shoulder whispering words of hope which lighten the fire-of-confidence. Next, which made us scratch those cards and really believe they would be giving that materials of high-value. The con-men today seem to attend drama school of London or Cymru. They work in groups extending to different locations. They look at our scratched piece of card and utter in pre-acted speechless shock-ness “ Wow! Anda adalah benar-benar pemenang bertuah kita hati ini! “ ( Wow! You really have won big! )

“ Tapi… saya perlu call boss saya dahulu… Sebab dalam ramai orang menggores, inilah kali pertama puan/tuan memenangi hadiah sebegini rupa “ ( I had to call my boss first to confirm, as you’re the first to win such a big prize amongst many scratchers!!! )

The agent may call up his/her boss with a chirpy reaction due to possible amount of money that they might scam you ehem…. Basically, they’re chirpy because you earned a bombastic prize which he himself as an ‘agent’ never seems to witness such a winning. The agent then came back and asked you to wait while the boss is on the way to verify your magnanimous lucky win. Or the agent might be generous enough to take you to their some ‘makeshift’ offices which they can scramble off once they cheated enough make-believe winners. And the rabbit hole goes deeper from there on.

The agents may suck-dry on victims, which explains why rabbit hole of Alice in wonderland keeps spiraling deeper. The victim thought there was more money means more chances. Instead, these scammers mean more seafood meal to devour as they gather someday someplace.

Some scam even involves high-times and current affair which really happens around the world. For instance, the Iraq war in 2003. Years later, your e-mail account would be luckily dropped by a message by someone, of high ranking officer claiming that Saddam Hussein has a huge sum of money inside some Swiss bank undetected/not-confisticated by the US/CIA/FBI/Interpol etc. etc..He claimed to be high-ranker of the Saddam regime. The officer pleaded for your help in depositing a certain amount of money in order to facilitate the ‘transfer’ of that money. He agreed to do all the paperwork necessitated for the transfer. The officer promised that you will receive your share of the ‘Saddam Hussein’ secret savings. It just made you wonder that how incredibly corrupt Saddam officers could be. Agent just had poked the greed out of its victim.

Agents not only tried to trigger all those seven deadly sins. There are agents which ponder to good values instilled within us since pre-school. Values like sympathy, compassion and patience. In Japan where watermelons were considered an expensive fruit, a man would insert broken watermelon inside his/her bag. Later, they would wander around a busy spot where people walked everywhere while chatting about business deals on DoCoMo’s ( Imagine Bukit Bintang, Jalan Sultan Ismail junction ). The scammer would approach a mark and drop those broken watermelons inside the bag; acted it out as it was the busy DoCoMo chatters fault of being careless or reckless. Hence, when the bag is open to expose those broken watermelons, the victim would feel guilty and paying sums of money as for ex gratia. The scammer would be harrah-ing its way to the nearest seafood store for a steamboat treat as the original broken watermelon were of a cheap and low-quality kind.

Our celebrity scammer ( I mentioned celebrity as they make news headlines ) would be the infamous Taipings’ Pak Man Telo or Osman Hamzah. Active in the 1970’s, he pioneered a scheme under a company ( or famously known as Labu Peram ), in which lets people to invest a certain amount of money which guaranteed return in such a short term. Indeed, those who invested RM2000 would get RM4000 next month. Which bank, financial institution or investment arm would grant that kind of interest? They deposited RM8k and really got RM16k on the next month. Trying to gain more and gaining momentum, the RM16k were re-invested when it mysteriously went missing instead of doubling. The Labu Peram scheme was busted in 1989 and he is captured in 1991. He was expelled to Terengganu since then.

In the end of the day, we helplessly fell into the same trap overtime. We cannot blame on stories circulated around us which tells about a commoner whom reach millionaire status out of osmosis, we might get lucky sometimes. But lucky will never find its way through beating the odds of becoming a millionaire through hard work, perseverance and determination. After all decision is made on intelligence and information, we can only seem to hope for the best. Since, it was hope that did not escape from the Pandora urn. The Greek mythology tells us disease, jealousy, envy and all evil came out of the urn and inflict all men. Zeus timely closes that urn and left hope under the lid.