Free gift and a swindle

One day I took a leave for holiday with family. Not quite a holiday since Her had work to do which required my help. After that was done then we went to Mal Artha Gading for refreshment. Just when we were about to leave the mall, on our way to the entrance my spouse Her was offered a free gift from a male bystander. I wasn’t interested at all.

He said, “it’s free, please take it.”

Her replied, “Really? Is there a catch? Will I have to buy something?”

“No, no catch whatsoever.. we just need you to fill this small form in our office, then this gift is yours for free,” He continues while showing the small brochure with form on it.

“Okay then, why not I fill the form here right now..”

“No, ma’am we need to fill this upstairs, it won’t take long.”

The person talked us into going to his office, on the second floor. Her wasn’t buying, but the bait is interesting so she played along and called me to follow. Upstairs I saw several females wearing rather flashy mini skirts, and upon entering their office, we were greeted by a friendly salesperson, let’s just call him Jack. And I was still not interested at all.

For administration, Jack asked Her for an ID card to be photocopied and she gave it to the girl in a mini skirt.

Jack was so friendly and talked almost all the time about their office, their products, asked where I work, what we do, on and on, Her had to cut him off several times to ask for her ID card to be returned. I began to get interested then.

Jack got a chance and showed off one of his main product, a technologically advanced electronic flat microwave stove. He showed several other items and even turned on the massaging couch for me. Then having asked for the third time, they came out and returned the ID card. The other salesperson, the one who offered the gift (let’s call him Jake) brought several folded papers and offer us to choose one of them, as extra lucky gift. Gabe took the shot and grab the one on top. He then gave it to Jack (still talking all the time). We teared the paper and it was written “Parcel VIP”.

We were going through a drama, a surprise party of “wow, you won the big prize!” something like that. There were phone calls to confirm our winning, and facsimile report that we’ve won the biggest prize, which in 50, only three of Parcel VIP, and we’ve got it. There were hurray, applause, and handshakes. But I was really interested at how they were playing the drama.

Okay, to make this short, we thought that Jack and everyone else there were acting like they’re starring a soap TV series, tried to buy us time and talked us out to give them the credit card they need to make a purchase of five million rupiahs. Yes, the peak of this show was the five million purchase we were required to make to claim all those prizes excluding the free gift. We knew. Been there, seen that. Jack once again tried to talk us into handing over our credit card. No sir, we only wanted the free gift, and we’ve no more time to play, so we stormed our way out and bid goodbye to them for having a nice talk and all that.

This holiday we’ve got our free gift, and Gabe has got one good lesson.

There are still companies using this kind of marketing scheme (i.e. scam), seducing us with free gifts and prizes so they can talk us (sometimes hypnotize) into spending five million rupiahs on their way-too-pricey home products.

Go for the free gift if you want to, but be wary not to give too much personal information, and more importantly, don’t give your credit card away.