In loving memory of my beloved wife

I had been in small scale online trading with either COD (cash on delivery) or courier service as early as back to 1996. It would be more than 14 years by now. Last night, a friend of mine shared his latest COD scam to me. It was really fortunate for him to have safe guarded his intended to be sold luxurious watches. But I believed the best part of it would be he managed to escaped from a possible nightmare that could haunt him days and nights.

The story began in this way...

Not so long ago (almost all story started like this... my little also asked me why?) my friend posted ads for luxurious watches for sale in Mudah (www.mudah.my) and he had been enjoying with some small profit by the buy-sell treating. It was only last afternoon when he received sms informing him that there was interests to complete the deal with COD. The watch priced at RM1x,xxx. My friend signaled the buyer that there is another watch for RM2x,xxx. To surprise, the buyer accepted and informed my friend for a location to complete the deal. It was at the hotel Heritage. And so, my friend with accompany with another guy arrived at the lobby and met another friend of mine who was also pending a COD deal (Handphone that priced at RM16xx) with the same buyer. And so they called the buyer. The buyer informed my friend that he is just the personal assistant to a dato (Dato is a honourous title for someone who mostly resembled rich, since with connection with government etc.) The PA claimed the dato wanted to complete the deal in his room for privacy manner.My friends started to be suspicious and cautious that they insist to complete the COD at the lobby instead of going inside a private room. It was then the dato replied that to meet at another private function room at the hotel. And so my friends rejected and left.

When we met at bar, he told me of this incident and immediately we agreed that this was a setup. We believed that as soon as my friends stepped inside the room, they would have been surrounded by a group of weapons armed guys to demand for the watches and items. It would be like planned robbery. What could worst could be that my friends would be photographed and ransomed from a sum of money etc. We also concluded that a dato could not require to buy luxurious watches from Mudah.com. It was an amazing trick of setup.

Well, let's be extra cautious whenever we are dealing for luxurious items in whatever manner. They are people watching.