AhYap’s Blog

AhYap is confirmed a dai sohai for being conned gao gao not once but twice from the same men. This proves again that AhYap is only good at talking cock theory but fail to implement them practically. If you are a follower of my blog, you would have read my post on the immobilizer conman and thought that I am very smart. Unfortunately, I have to admit that, “Book smart is not street smart.” [To know how book smart I am, I have at least 10 books highly relavant to conning tactics and its psychologies]

Time: Saturday evening
Place: My House @ Ipoh

My friend and I was at my garden and suddenly 4 Indians driving a blue van stopped in front of my house. That was scary because I really wonder if they are bad guys! Then 1 of them came down, point to my grass and start talking about my grass. He told me the name of my grass, different types of grasses, problems with my grass, etc. etc.  Then he said that he work as the gardener for a golf course for 25 years and he do gardening for people at part time. He knows what he speaks. He talk for a very long time outside the gate until at one moment he requested to come in to explain in more details the ‘problem’ of my grass. [I Broke Rule #1 - Never let stranger come into your house]

As precaution I only let him in and have others waited outside. He pointed to some yellow patch of the grass and some holes and told me that there are ‘worms’ eating the root below and digging the hole up. The hole indeed look like being dug by some insects, and I have also heard of such worm that eat the roots of grass. So I didn’t doubt about that. But till now, I still don’t expect myself to pay him anything.

He then started to promote 2 products. The first one is bat’s shit. Yep, the fertilizer made with the shit of Batman by Joker and Two Face. Actually I google it and find out that the correct term is bat guano. It is indeed a very expensive type of fertilizer that is high in phosphorus which is good for roots growing (Nitrogen is good for leaves, Potassium is good for flowers).

The 2nd product is a ‘liquid’ that he said his golf course imported overseas specially for use in their golf course. Until now I also don’t know its real purpose. Something like preventing the grass to grow tall but make them grow to the side, thus making your grass more ‘carpet’ and at the same time killing the weeds because they no longer can ’stand up’. I have never heard of such product but I am very curious on it.

This Indian guy is very skillful in talking. He can speaks Indian, English, Malay and Hokkien! (I don’t know Hokkien!) And he knows almost everything about plants and gardening. He talked for a very long time and the goal of the whole process is to convince me that he is ‘genuine’ and ‘trustable’.

How he broke pattern (breaking pattern in NLP means make someone suddenly dumb and stupid and can’t think normally like he did before. For example if you are talking very excited about something to your friend and suddenly he asked you a question that is totally unrelated, your thought pattern was broken and you respond by asking, “WHAT?!” and then you forget until where you talk until just now) -

He told me that you can’t buy this craps (bat craps) anywhere else because he ’steal’ it out from his gold course! The greed in me kicks in. And I didn’t doubt this fact at all. He said he had to steal a little bit a day from the golf course (including the ‘liquid’) so no one notice. He say he wants to cari makan a bit.

He keeps talking and talking (for a very long time) to convince me to put those shits and urine (the ‘liquid’ lar) to my grass. So I asked about the price and he said the urine cost RM95 per bottle and the shit cost RM65 per packet. Sounds expensive to me. So I didn’t agreed.

He kept on talking and talking. He asked his teammates outside to bring in sample of the liquid which is filled up in old 7up and Sarsi bottles! And he showed me some of the bat shit and let me touch it. He is trying very hard to convince me. I later asked him how many bags and bottles I need. He said 3 bottles and 3 packs is more than enough.

You see, I indeed love my grass very much and if the products can really deliver what it promised, I am willing to pay. My parents said this is the reason I fall for it – I can afford the money.

2nd event that break my pattern came in. My friend wanted to say bye bye and leave my house, so I opened the gate for him and then the Indian guy immediately order all his friends to come in and bring in all the urines and shits. He opened up the shit and ask me to see (see shit!). Then what he did is too surprising for me. He started pouring the bat shit to my lawn. I thought he was just giving me a demo on a small area but hell not, he is pouring a lot! Then he instructed his partners to continue pouring the shit while asking another one to spray the liquid to my glass.

Since my pattern was broken, I thought I can afford a try of that since it is around RM400 for 3 bottles of 7up and 3 packs of shit. So I didn’t stop them but let them finished.

It was scary. They keep pouring and pouring and pouring until my whole lawn is full of black shit. Fortunately they are not ’smelly’ like fertilizer made with chicken shit. End up they have used 5 bottles of liquid and 6 packs of shits!!!

This is a very common sales technique. If you tell somebody in advance the whole thing will cost RM815, they won’t want the deal, but if you tell them one pack is RM65 and mostly you will need 3 packs, they have higher chances of agreeing, which is my case! The problem is that they will quietly add up the number of packs without asking you and when you know about it, it is too late. Shit is already on the floor! It is very hard to argue, unless you know it is really a con case and reject it. But I don’t know yet!

[In Ipoh got a very popular Hakka mee store. They use this tactic to ALL their customers. When you order the fishballs and fu-pei, you might say, "I want 20 mix mix." Then come a big bowl of fish balls and fu-pei and you eat happily with your family. After you finished and you wanted to pay, they charge you very expensive and you ask, "WTF! How much is your fishball and your fu-pei, I only order 20!" And then he will answer, "Oh, we give you 30 fishballs and fu-pei mar, that's why." @*&$$%(% How do you argue? Fishballs are already in your stomach! Pay lor.]

He is so good. He put all the empty bags and bottles on the floor and asked me to calculate how much to pay him! This is funny, now I feel like what he is saying is, “Now I want to cheat you, you calculate how much you should let me cheat. Since you calculate it yourself, that means you agree to be cheated by me. I didn’t force you at all.”

So I calculated with my Sony Ericsson and the amount is scary, RM815 (double the RM400 I expected). He said RM800 is OK, RM15 no need to count. He also promised me that tomorrow he will bring me a lot of nice pebbles to put beside my plants and bring me ‘uri powder’ (powder made from urine?) for FREE! [actually he means he will steal the pebbles and uri powder for me] The powder according to him is used to prevent grasshoppers and other insects eating the leaves of the plants.

So I try to act smart and wanna fished him back to make sure he will come back tomorrow to give me those stuffs (greed again!). What I don’t know is I am actually trying to fish this shark back to bite me again tomorrow. I gave them only RM700 and ask them to collect the RM100 tomorrow after they bring me the pebbles and uri powder. (greed! greed! greed!) Sometimes when you think you are acting very smart, you are actually acting very stupid. That’s me.

Although I have paid them RM700, I felt quite happy with the shits and is eagerly waiting for my lawn to turn green and nice. (I love my lawn a lot, my girl friend sometimes said I love my lawn more than I love her) It is always easier to sell someone things that they want and need, like selling weight loss program to women, selling Yunnan hair care to Yap Kim Hock and other bald mans, selling ‘healing’ pills to cancer patient, etc.

At night I told my parents my story of the “encounters of the 4 Indians”. As expected, parents always worried that their children get conned. So they said things like, “Where got shit that is so expensive!”, “You trusted people too easily already lor”, blar blar blar. And that make me very angry because they still talk to me like a kid and THIS, drive up my ego and I want to proof that I am right.

I also googled for bat shit at night from the internet and notice that the price is indeed very expensive! 1 kilo cost around RM40 to RM50! So the little-greedy man feel very proud of himself on the day. But I can’t find anything about the liquid because I don’t even know the name of it.

— — — — —

Time: Sunday evening
Place: My Same House @ Ipoh, now with bat shits.

They came back!

4 of the same Indian came in the same blue van. The same man speaks. For the whole event, the other 3 Indians never speak (1 old 2 young). And the man who speaks, who ‘works’ at a golf course and ’steals’ from it, called himself Bala Krishnan. He is so pro that he can tackle any question thrown to him easily.

If you asked him, “Can I have your telephone number?”, he will said I will give you my card tomorrow. Then switch your attention by saying, “When you call to the office, make sure you don’t tell them I make garden for you! Because you can’t let them know I take things out from the golf course!” So that makes you believe on him easily.

If you asked him, “What is the name of the ‘liquid’?”, he will said, “I will bring you the brochure tomorrow, that would be easier for you.”

My neighbour went to see my garden and he said he want to plant grass also. Bala said can and ask him to check on my grass that will become very green a few days later. To convince me more that he is really trying to do business (and not conning), he even walked to my other neighbour house and promote his liquid and bat shit! All of these are ‘acts’ which you will understand later. Acting to show to me that he is genuine businessman trying to make money by doing gardening but not conning.

He said he wants to do landscaping for my house, he walk through my garden and tell me the whole plan of what he is going to do, which is of course very attracting. It includes 6 big bonsai trees, a Japanese garden, a rock garden that have a few slopes, a palm tree garden, etc. etc. The description is very detail where he will tell you what flower he will plant, where to plant, how to plant, etc. etc. In office term, he did a fantastic ‘presentation’ to his ‘customer’ whose name is sohaiyap.

Sohaiyap, sohaiyap. Sohaiyap was so happy and asked him how much all these cost. He said he is able to get things out and it cost only RM980 for everything. And he said I only need to pay RM580 up front for the things (stones, plants, etc.) My greedy mind sounds like this, “If I have already paid RM900 for shits and urines, why not pay another RM980 for so much more?”

Now let see how smart he is in making up a story on why he needs the RM580 up front and need it NOW! He said in order to get things out from the company (i.e the golf course), they need to pay the security guard and the lady clerk! He said they are part of it, no money, nothing goes out!

After promoting the RM980 project, I asked him what he would do to the front part of my house. This gave him more ‘idea’ to increase my spending. He said, “I just want to be ‘honest’ with you, if you have the extra money, you can do xxxxxxxx here xxxxxxxx there”. He recommended me to plant Australian carpet grass. In my research on grass, I have never heard of Australian carpet grass before. I have spoken with some good garderner and they didn’t mention about that before too. But as I am executing in stupid-mode, I believe on his ‘Australian grass’ – a grass according to him that can grow even under shades and in air con room! He said, “You never see those rich people plant glass inside their house and on the balcony meh?” [the word rich triggered my ego]

He even measured the area of the land slowly and told me that I only needs 8 rolls to cover up the area. He said he will plant the same grass on the back of my garden too since that place is also very shady and my Philliphine grass didn’t look nice there. [All people who plant glass knows that grass grow long and thin under shades. They need lots of sun to grow beautiful.] He said I just need to add on RM350!

[My blog reader, remember add-on tactic? McDonald - add RM1 for large flies and coke? It is in my Tenaga Nasional post.]

I throw up a “professional” question to him. When you plant 2 types of grass in the same land, one will win over the other and  ‘eat’ them up. So I am worried. So I asked who will eat who in this case, the Philliphine’s Mary Ann or the Australia’s Mohawk. He didn’t even need a second to tackle that and said, “You cut a line in between both and plant Japanese Roses in between and cut anything that try to cross over.” How intelligent is that answer.

And this Bala even asked me to take up a piece of paper to write down all the things that he promised me to do. He called that “our agreement” so no one can “argue” after that since both of us already signed on it! The total price I needed to pay is RM580 + RM100 I owe them yesterday + RM350 for the Australian grass.

What happened next shows that I am more dumb than my mother thinks.

Because yesterday I owed them RM100 and I didn’t have the money, I went to ATM to withdraw money in the morning. I already had a feeling that they will ask me for more money so to prevent my money going out from my wallet, I have only withdrew RM500, my little ’smart’ defence. I was thinking, “If I don’t have the money, how do I give it to you?” Smart right? But unfortunately, I am more stupid than your mother thinks.

I said I don’t have enough money, I only have RM580. So I gave him. Then he said in order to take the Australian carpet grass, I have to pay full. He is really good. He spoke Tamil to his member and asked him if it is possible to not pay for the grass first. Then he turned back with a impossible-look and told me cannot because the clerk is a tough lady. No money no talk. [all of these are acting]

But since I really don’t have the money, I show him my empty wallet. He thought for awhiel and said, “Like this, you write on the ‘agreement’ RM350 and you write deposit RM150. With this paper, I try to talk to the lady.”

So I agreed since I feel like I got a ‘bargain’. Fool. Now what I am going to do next is more stupid than Bala’s mother thinks.

– I actually drove to the same bank to the same ATM that I went this morning to withdraw more money so that I can give it to Bala! –

It didn’t finish here! Just when I got home, he showed me the ‘Uri Powder’. It was a small pack of pink powder. He told me a lot about it which I didn’t understand. The more I didn’t understand, the more he looked like a pro to me (Just like I don’t understand what Tan Teng Boo is writing in his macroeconomics section in his newsletter)

Then he walked me around my neigbourhood to look at plants that he said he will bring for me. We looked at bonsai trees, look at Christmas trees … He explained a lot about plants to me. Then, here comes the last part on where I am more stupid than Bala’s mother’s mother’s thinks!

He told me that he can’t let his member know about this. He can bring me more pepples and lots of bat shits FREE if I can give him RM150 extra personally. He said he don’t want to let his members know or else they won’t be happy because he wanted the money himself. Dumb and stupid, I pull out three RM50 notes and gave to him. Is it correct when I say I am more stupid than Bala’s mother’s mother’s thinks?

I have paid a total of RM1680 to him in 2 days, multiple times! 168 is a good number for the Chinese. It means ‘keep on getting richer’. Unfortunately it is the 4 Indians that is 168 and not me.

He asked me to wait at home while he and his gang is going to bring the plants and stones to my house later at night. He asked me not to open the door to anyone other than him. Just when he is leaving, my another neighbour pass by in her car. And this pro Bala still continue to act. He came down the van and asked my neighbour if she want to do gardening. He asked her to contact me if she need it later! [all of these are acting]

4 of them drove away and I waited the whole rainy night. Waiting excitingly for my 6 bonsai trees that according him has 2 wings to the left and 2 wings to the right. Waiting excitingly for my Japanese garden that have short bamboo trees. Waiting excited for my Chritmas tree. Waiting … waiting …

But they never came back …

… … … … … …

Time: Monday evening
Place: My Same Old House @ Ipoh, now with wet bat shits after rainy night

The longer I wait the more I feel something is wrong. At one moment, I decided to check out with a ‘reference’ that Bala mentioned before – a Malay house that buy his shit too. So I drove there and the gate was big opened. I saw someone inside. I pushed the doorbell and waited outside. What I heard from the inside was surprising, “Haha, Cina kali ini.” (Haha, This time Chinese). The reason they say this is because before this it was Indian!

The Malay owner came out and I asked him if someone called Bala came to do his grass. He said yes. I shared my story with him which matched his version! Just that he was conned a lot less than me. He was sold RM400 for the bat shit and urine. Then he paid him RM150 for the extra project. After some talk, we can confirmed that it is really the work of a team of conmen.

I left his house calculating the loses. At first I thought at least I got the bat shit and urine. Then I started to wonder is there really such kind of liquid that work so wonderfully? The only way for it to happened that way is though biotechnology, by modifying the genetics feature of the grass. Can those liquid in the 7 up bottles do that? I suddenly feel like the liquid is realy nothing but tape water. And my mind quickly turn to the bat shit…

Just 1 second after I reached home, I ran to examine the bat shit. THEY ARE NOT SHIT! THEY ARE MERELY BLACK SOIL!!!!!!!! Only the little sample that they showed me earlier look like fertilizer. I finally realized that my whole garden is not covered up by shit and urine but merely black soil and pipe water! Now I understand why shit don’t smell like shit.

I paid RM1680 and I don’t even get some shit!!! Shit also they want to cheat!!!

… … … … … …

Since you are a 3rd party, like my mum and dad. You will think all of these is avoidable. I also think so since I have examined so many con cases before, until I was trapped for one myself. There is no ’sleeping smoke’ or other chemical used to make me feel sleepy and stupid, as many people being conned claimed to be. If I am sleepy, how can I remember my ATM pin number?

Most people don’t know how they get conned. They can’t tell you the whole process of how it happened. Like an old lady bringing back 3 botols of mineral water that cost him RM300. Or an old man being cheated to withdraw money from the bank multiple times in a day. So they blamed it on the smoke, which of course is not the case.

All con cases are done using psychology tactics. Most of the time they are based on 1 of the 2 drivers – GREED or FEAR.

In my case it is GREED. Greed on getting something cheaper because it is ‘taken’ out from the golf course. By now you should know that the ‘golf course’ and ’stealing’ is a make up. You don’t need to steal black sand and pipe water out from the golf course. Greed of wanting my garden to look good. Greed of getiing so much done with so little money.

FEAR is usually used towards old people. They told them if they don’t give them money, their son or son-in-law or grandson will die in accident. She will need to bring money to pray to the god to save them. It is impossible to ’smoke’ them because they need them to go to the bank to withdraw money. How can a sleepy person withdraw money from the counter? How would the bank staff pay someone that look like a Zombie?

Bala, without the need to read any books, has become one of the greatest pychologist, sales man and marketer in Malaysia. There are lots of things to learn here in selling.

1. Bala is a pro on building references. References are ‘who who buy from me’, ‘who who also say very good’ … like “Mahathir eat already can grow until 90 years old! Or else he would be dead already.” The more references you have the more likely you can close a sale.

2. Bala uses add-on tactic to sell the Australian carpet grass. It look like a greater deal if you add RM350 to get so much extra instead of telling you to pay RM1330 for everything.

3. Bala uses contrast principle – he told me another auntie want to do just a Japanese garden and he also charged her RM980, so after comparing, it looks like I have a great deal.

4. Bala and his team are good on acting. The purpose is to make me believe. His partners are very ‘hardworking’ in cleaning up weeds in my garden while bala is fishing. Bala will shout at his partners and ask them to do this and that. He is so ‘fiece’ in front of them. All of these are acts, to make me feel real.

One of his best act is when he wanted to leave. Because no people would pay him first if he leaves the house. So he gave the ‘agreement’ to one of his partner and ask him to take those things. And the member act dumb like he didn’t understand what to take (all in Tamil), then Bala act like he is very fadeout with him and said, “I will just go with him. Do a little things also don’t know,” (meaning to me is his member is too dumb to execute the job, so he has to go with him, an excuse to flee!)

Another best act is when he opened up the back of his van to show me his bat shits, after that he quickly closed it and said, “Oh cannot let people see this, if not I will get into trouble!”

He even keep telling me that if what he did is good, I must recommend my friends to him! He said he guarantee he wil make my garden very nice so that other people will want to do business with him after they look at my garden! Remember how he walked to my neighbour and asked them to contact me if they want to do gardening? Not once but 3 times!

—

My money is a small problem. My ego is a bigger problem for me but I am able to tame it down (or else I won’t be blogging it out). The biggest problem? They are just too good and I am sure more people will fall for it. It is totally pointless to make a police report, it wastes your time and salava for nothing but more dissapointments.

The meaningful thing to do is to share it up here. If you are an Ipoh kia, please ask your friends who have plants/flowers/grass in their yard to read this post. Or simply told them to beware of the 4 Indians in a blue van who told you they worked in a golf course and talk about bat shit and ‘liquid’. My story ends here and I am letting it go right now. Life goes on as usual.

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