Con Artist

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

My sister in East Malaysia came face to face with a con artist recently, and lived to tell me about it. Being in the hotel industry, she would come across all sorts of weirdos. This one was really an eye opener though, and I'm glad she had to smarts to identify the goofball that tried to pull a fast one on her.

A certain "Dr", claiming to be some master in teaching people how to maximize their memory, walked into the resort one fine day, uninvited, and asked to speak to the Communications person. It was a Saturday and that already pissed my sister off LOL! So fine, she went to meet this "Dr" fella and found him waiting at the lounge area.

This "Dr" told my sister that he wanted to organise a seminar in the hotel itself, and asked if the hotel would like to be his official venue sponsor. He even asked that the hotel sponsor him the Presidential suite during the duration of his "seminar". In my own sister's thoughts... "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CIPET"...

The "Dr" further explained that, "If you guys sponsor my stay at the Presidential suite, we can look at how you can recover that amount from my training seminar."

Cut to my sister's sibeh tulan face.... >.< style="font-style: italic;">"Dr" could provide a figure, as to how many participants is he expecting to his seminar, and whether or not he can give a guarantee that all participants would stay in the resort. The "Dr" couldn't give an answer at all, and then ding donged a bit about how he writes for the "Daily Express" twice a week, and that a man of his credentials can give the resort credit mention.

My sister's thought bubble: Ma fwak! That's what I think of your credit mention, all Tom Dick and Harry can give me credit mention.

And then this "Dr" started playing TV interviews about HIMSELF. Started showing file clippings about HIMSELF. Mind you, the clippings were so old, that NST has changed their masthead TWICE. He even added that he conducted a seminar in another big name resort in East Malaysia 9 years ago, and they had a lot of coverage due to his seminar. So my sister again asked him to show some newspaper clippings of that particular seminar he mentioned, and he kept quiet... and then replied that he didn't have it with him.

Mind you, this "Dr" didn't even have a business card on him. He claimed he was on vacation so he didn't bring any with him. Ok, we give that to you.

My sister enlightened me on this later that evening, and I did some Googling and found loads of write-ups on this guy. Turns out, he's a scammer and has been going around scamming people. So if any of you guys come across this person, please be very very wary of his motives. His name is Dr Timothy Koh Ming Kwang.

http://www.kohmingkwang.org/
http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6121
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=20527