WE'LL PAY UP BUT WE WON'T SHUT UP
VICTIMS
Outnumbered and surrounded, S'pore family agree to go to lucky draw touts' office
Couple and daughter, 7, locked up for 3 hours
Forced to buy $1,880 of products
By Tay Shi'an
August 27, 2007
THE shophouse door was locked and the family of three were face-to-face with four aggressive men.
Frightened: Mr Khan and his daughter showing how the touts approached them. -- posed picture| kelvin chng
As tense minutes turned into hours, the parents feared for their young daughter's safety.
They finally acceded to their keepers' demands, paying them RM4,305 ($1,880) to secure their release.
The Singapore family's ordeal, which lasted three hours, started when lucky draw touts approached them in the carpark of a Malacca shopping mall on 11Aug.
They said the men acted like gangsters. 'While it's not like they put a knife to our necks, it was very stressful. They said pay, get the prize, then you can leave.'
But the Khans are not your usual pay-up-and-shut-up family.
They later went about getting their money back with a persistence that would make any policeman proud.
They made multiple reports to both the Malaysian and Singapore authorities, travelling up and down the Causeway three times within a week.
They eventually got their money back. (See report on facing page.)
The couple, who wanted to be known only as Mr and Mrs Khan, and their daughter, 7, were in Malacca on holiday.
Around 7.30pm, they drove to the Mahkota Parade Shopping Mall for dinner.
While they were parking the car, two youngsters, who seemed to be in their late teens, suddenly came up and rapped on the window.
When Mr Khan, 36, a service coordinator for a security company, tried to get out, he was blocked.
Said Mrs Khan, 37, a property agent: 'They showed us these lucky draw coupons and asked us to get them to support the Malaysian government because they were part of the 50 years of Merdeka celebrations.
'They said we could just open them and we didn't have to pay anything. There was no obligation.'
AGGRESSIVE
The family tried making excuses, but the teens were persistent.
Said MrsKhan: 'We told them that our daughter was hungry, and we didn't want the coupons, but they were very aggressive and kept pestering us.'
She said the carpark was deserted then.
So, Mr Khan opened the lucky draw coupon, thinking he could get rid of the teens after that.
'That's when the show started,' said Mrs Khan. 'They starting jumping and shouting: 'Oh my god, they've won!'
'They told us we just won RM1.5million and a Toyota Altis.
'They said we were so lucky. They called their supervisor on the phone, and two more men arrived and started shaking our hands, saying we must blanjah (treat) them at dinner.'
The men showed them what looked like newspaper clippings of past winners.
Mr Khan admitted that, at the time, he felt it was '50-50' whether the lucky draw was real or a scam.
But he became alarmed when the men told the family to go to their office nearby to collect the prize.
That's when the two teens suddenly got into their car - which in the confusion he had neglected to lock.
They refused to get out.
Said Mrs Khan: 'We were very afraid. But because we were outnumbered, and we couldn't leave the rented car with them inside, we felt we had no choice but to stay in the car with them.'
The teens told Mr Khan to drive to a shophouse about 10minutes away, while the two men followed in another car.
Once there, the family was ushered in, and the door was locked.
The men told them that in order to claim their prize, they had to buy a foot reflexology machine, a microwave oven and a water purifier for RM3,690.
The family tried to leave, but the men kept talking and refused to let them out.
'Not so easy,' they told the family.
Two men stood next to Mrs Khan, another stood guard behind them, and the fourth man stood in front of the couple - who had their daughter between them - and led the verbal onslaught.
Mrs Khan said: 'We were on their territory. They were intimidating and insistent, and we were scared for our daughter's safety.'
Added Mr Khan: 'We saw two other people outside the office, and we didn't know if they had any weapons.'
Finally, the family caved in and paid using Mrs Khan's debit card.
The shophouse, which they described as a makeshift office, had a terminal on which their card worked.
The couple also handed over their ICs and real contact numbers to the touts.
'It was so difficult to think. We were trapped, and my mindset was, whatever it is, we just want to do something to get out of here,' said MrsKhan.
ROUND 2
To their disbelief, the men made another a phone call, and started dancing around the office and banging on the tables.
They had, apparently, won yet another prize. The men said their prize money had doubled: They had won the overall grand prize for the whole of Malaysia.
The catch - they had to pay another RM3,690 to claim the prize.
Said Mrs Khan: 'We refused and said we had no more money. But they still wouldn't let us go.
'In the end, we said we only had RM615, and the boss said okay.'
After the second payment was made with another debit card, the men carried the products to the Khans' car, reminding them to return to pay the balane they owed.
'The manager even gave me a namecard so I could contact him,' said Mrs Khan.
By the time they were released, it was 11pm.
'My daughter almost fainted, she was so tired,' said Mrs Khan.
'I told myself I would do my best to get our money back from these people.'
Refusing to remain a victim, MrsKhan fought back, approaching various consumer bodies and making police reports in both Malaysia and Singapore.
Mr Fahmi Kasim, chief enforcement officer at the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, which is in charge of the Tribunal For Consumer Claims, said there have been at least 20 cases so far this year against the same company.
'The modus operandi is the same. They approach people in carparks, hypermarts and shopping centres, saying they have won lucky draw prizes, like a car or a motorcycle - but they have to pay to claim the prizes,' he said.
He said the agency will recommend that the company's license be terminated.
