At the stroke of midnight on the 15th December, 2011 Maxis unveiled the latest Apple device i.e. the iPhone 4S to a large crowd of eagerly awaiting customers at their  launch event at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Some of the customers have actually waited as long as 12 hours to be the first few to own the iPhone 4S gadget from Apple. The first person in line to own this device is Leonard Chan, a 16 year old from Cheras who has queued for about 12 hours to be the first person to buy the iPhone 4S in Malaysia. Leonard is no stranger to the Apple devices having owned the iPod Shuffle 2 years ago.

With this launch of iPhone 4S, Maxis will be selling this device concurrently in other parts of Malaysia e.g. Johor Baru, Penang, Kuantan, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching.

The new iPhone 4S will be available at all Maxis Centres and Maxis Exclusive Partners  nationwide from the 16th December 2011 onwards.

Among some of the new enhancements to Maxis’ iValue plans are increased data quota and the added free WiFi connection of 4GB per month in all Maxis hot spots.

With the added free bundled WiFi connection, customers can now enjoy full mobile data experience on Maxis mobile network. To check out Maxis’ WiFi hot spost, customers can download the Maxis WiFi App from the App store at no charge.

Below are the packages offered by Maxis for the iPhone 4S package:-

Mona Simpson is Steve Jobs’ biological sister that he has never met until she was 25 years old. She is a novelist and won the Whiting Prize for her first novel titled “Anywhere but Here” in 1986.

Steven Jobs is known for being a visionary with a strong passion and desire to drive others to create superior products. He is also often known to be harsh, rude and obnoxious in many situations.

Mona Simpson’s eulogy for Steve Jobs revealed the lesser known personality of the great technology icon. In her eulogy, she uncovered the softer side of Steve as a family man, romantic husband, caring father, charming brother and his philosophy of live, his illness and his passing on.

If you have not read about Steve Jobs’ sister’s eulogy for her brother, you may head over to the New York Times article below. i would strongly recommend that you read it if you have not done so to understand this iconic legend a little better. This is something that is not revealed even in his book.

According to the eulogy, the iconic legend’s last words were “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!”

This is what a person normally utters when he achieves something and we believe Steve has indeed achieved much even with his death.

Below is the link to the New York Times article of Mona Simpson’s eulogy for Steve Jobs:-

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?pagewanted=all

The mobile phone scams are on the rise in Malaysia with the recent uncertainty in the global market and many scammers looking for a quick buck by “scaring” victims into transferring their money from their bank accounts into another “safe” third party account. Many businessmen were already “conned” by these highly skillful conmen which acted as “bank officers” or “policemen”.

Apparently, this syndicate has siphoned more than RM18 Million from 811 victims according to NST Malaysia.

The modus operandi of this “Macau Scam” group is to obtain as much details about the prospective victim’s personal data and someone from the group will act as either a “bank officer” or “policeman” to verify the personal details with the prospective victim. Once these details are verified and the prospective victim begins to trust them a little more, they will use “fear” to scare these prospective victims into revealing even more details and to take certain actions like “transferring their money” to another “safe” account in order to protect their money.

One of the frequently used “fear tactics” that this group of syndicate is using is to inform their prospective victims that their credit cards or bank account had been hacked by a third party. In some cases, the victims were informed that their credit cards have been fraudulently used abroad and Federal Police like the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) or the Hong Kong Police are involved.

“The syndicate has also used the prestige and name of Bank Negara to impress upon the victims about the seriousness of the issue. The more well-known the reputation, the higher the chance of the victim acting first and thinking later.”

The main objective of the call is to get their victims to act quickly and think later.

iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers have reported this in an earlier blogpost but compelled to re-write about this as these scammers and fraudsters are highly skilled and very good at what they are doing. To date, they have already “tricked” 811 victims of more than RM18 Million.

Below is our earlier blog post which details how these scammers use “Bukit Aman Police Station” and “Hong Kong Police” to trick their prospective victims:-

http://www.iphonemalaysiablog.com/news/mobile-phone-scam-in-malaysia

Please continue to share these with your family and friends so that more and more people are aware about what these group of “Macau Scam” syndicate is doing and how we can equip ourselves with knowledge to spot these scammers and not add into the statistics.

Last night after market’s close, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook hosted the first ever quarterly report after Steve Jobs demise on the 5th October, 2011. In remembrance of the visionary Steve Jobs and his former boss, Cook started with a remark that, “The world has lost a visionary, a creative genius and an amazing human being. Steve was a great leader and mentor and inspired everyone at Apple to do extraordinary things. His spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple and we are dedicated to turn using the amazing work that he loved so much.” Cook then expressed gratitude for the long list of condolences that poured into the company on Jobs’s passing away.

Apple’s Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer informed shareholders and investors that Apple has achieved a record sales of 4.89 million Mac units. This represent the highest shipment of Macs and is an increase of 750,000 units compared to last year’s figure. Apple’s Asia-Pacific region saw an increase of 61% in the sales of Macs. Even in a market that is barely growing at all, Japan’s Mac sales has jumped 48% compared to last year’s figure.

Apple’s iTunes recorded a revenue of almost $1.5 billion in the quarter, Oppenheimer said.

Apple’s iPhone sales has increased 21% to 17.1 million units was better than what Apple has expected and ia a new record for the September quarter in Apple’s history. This figure is however, short of what the analysts have expected which is in the range of between 18 million to 20 million units. Apple’s CFO Oppenheimer remarked that the Apple iPhone’s sales in the Asia-Pacific region was “particularly strong”. Apple originally thought that the sales of the iPhone would drop in this quarter due to some not so favourable comments from fans about the iPhone 4S launch. Many of the die-hard Apple fans were actually waiting for the launch of the iPhone 5 but were disappointed. All in all, the iPhone’s revenue has increased by 24% to $11billion in this quarter.

“We’ve gotten off to a great start with the 4S,” said Tim Cook.

“We’ve sold over 4 million in just three days after launch and so we’re thrilled with the start that we have. We’re confident that we will have a large supply but I don’t want to predict when supply and demand might balance because the demand is obviously extremely high right now, but I’m confident that we will set an all-time record for iPhone this quarter.”

Cook said the goal with the iPhone is to “eat into” the 1.5 billion handsets sold each year, not just the 400 million smartphone units sold each year.

Apple has also toyed with the idea of reducing the iPhone 3GS by giving it out for free with a 2-year’s contract commitment plan with some carriers to test out the take up rate in the market. It has certainly not being practiced here in Malaysia though.

Apple’s CFO noted that Apple continues to be “thrilled” with the take up rate of its iPad. Apple has sold  11.1 million units of iPad this year compared to 4.2 million units sold last year. This figure is about 3 times the iPads sold last year.

Apple’s retail stores recorded a revenue of $3.6 billion, which is an increase of 1% compared to last year. The number of  Macs sold through the retail stores increased by 25% to 1.1 million units. Apple has also increased their total store count to 357 as of the end of this quarter. It has added 30 new stores, of which 21 stores are outside of the US. Apple is planning to open another 40 new stores in 2012. Out of which 30 will be located outside of the US.

Oppenheimer said the company sees gross margin being about the same this quarter as last quarter’s 40.3%. Even though component costs are coming down, which is good, that will be offset to some extent by “the impact of higher cost structures and reduced price points for the recently introduced iPhones and iPods, as well as the stronger U.S. dollar.”

During the earnings call, the big question that analysts and investors have for Tim Cook was what he intends to do with the huge amount of cash that the company has generated through the sales of its products. Apple is currently sitting on about $82billion in cash and investments. Tim Cook has replied that “The cash is always a topic and will always include to do what we think is in Apple’s best interest and I think we’ve done that so far and if you look at where we’ve spent it, I think you would agree.”

All in all i would think the results were not “bad”. However, this results were lower than what the Analysts have expected and the AAPL stock has been beaten down by more than 6.4% in its after hours trading to $395.12 at the point of this writing which is down by $27.12 compared to the market closing of $422.24 before the earnings call.

The news of Steve Jobs’ death has made headlines in most of the news portals and many die-hard fans of the iconic legend feels sad with his passing on. Many would like to have him leave a little longer so that we can enjoy more of his innovative and creative products. Somewhere in Penang on the beautiful island of Pulau Jerejak, about 40 people have gathered and took part in a ritual to bring back Steve Jobs through re-incarnation. This news was reported by Sin Chew Daily, a local chinese newspaper.

This ritual was performed last Sunday by a Medium from Rawang, Selangor. This ceremony has drawn many criticism from various groups including the Federation of Taoist Associations Malaysia and several Buddhist associations. Many had called it “ridiculous” and “superstitious”.

According to the daily, followers were asked to take a bite from an apple and observe three minutes of silence before throwing the fruit into the sea but some had finished half of the fruit before doing so as it was very sweet.

According to the report, most of the followers do not even know who Steve Jobs were and they were doing it to enjoy a day trip in Penang as well as to pray for good fortune. The followers also had to pay between RM50 and RM75 to take part in the ceremony.

Apple’s latest iPhone 4S went on sale last Friday to an eager crowd many of whom queued overnight around city blocks to purchase the last iPhone device that are unveiled during Steve Jobs’ life. This news is enough to send the Shares of Apple, AAPL to skyrocket to $422 last Friday. Up $13.57 or 3.32% last Friday. Some fans that were interviewed last Friday have quoted that they wanted something to remember Steve Jobs. This is truly a legendary remark and achievement for the late Steve Jobs. Even after he has passed on, his Product sensation has lived on!

After we have done some analyzing, we found that the launch of the iPhone 4S is indeed the right move for Apple for the below reasons:-

1.  The iPhone 4S is not meant to replace the iPhone 4. The reason for this is because there is not much enhancement of the the iPhone 4S compared to the iPhone 4 model except for the faster speed. In addition to that, the users of the iPhone 4 will likely still be under contract if they have purchased the iPhone last year. With a 2 year contract period, it is not easy for these users to upgrade to the iPhone 4S. Hence, for users who are having the iPhone 4, they will probably not dump their iPhone 4 to upgrade their unit to the iPhone 4S for the little added benefits of the latest device. iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers believe that the iPhone 5 will likely only be released sometime Summer of 2012 which is in June 2012. The reason why we predict this date is because this is about 2 years after the the initial launch of the iPhone 4 which means that all iPhone 4 users will be off contract by then and it would be a great group to target for the upgrades.

2.  The real target for the iPhone 4S device is actually for the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, current Android users and new smartphone users. For the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS users, their contract when the purchased the device would probably be over by now and it is definitely a great time to upgrade their current device instead of waiting until maybe mid of next year for the iPhone 5 to be released. This group is big enough to make the iPhone 4S launch a big success as what we have seen last Friday. In addition to that, the iPhone 4S will also likely attract a lot of converts from the Android loyal camp to the iPhone camp. This is the key group that Apple would be very interested and happy to acquire as this is an acquisition from their main competitor. Last but not least, another group that is an easy target is the new smartphone users. New reports have shown that this group is huge and with more and more people moving from a traditional phone to a smart phone, the ability to capture this group of subscribers is key to the success in this competitive landscape.

Another fact that you should know is that The iPhone product range which is the gold standard for smartphones is actually Apple’s highest margin product and accounts for 40 percent of its annual revenue. If Apple were to launch the iPhone 5 last week, they would probably have done much better compared to the iPhone 4S but they would have missed out on a huge opportunity in the future to launch another successful iPhone 5.

This is indeed a truly shocking news for all Apple and Steve Jobs fans around the world. This iconic figure who has steered Apple from the brink of a bankruptcy is announced dead on Wednesday at age 56. Steve Jobs will be clearly missed and remembered as one of the greatest CEO of all time. He has been battling with pancreatic cancer for sometime and handed the company’s top post to Tim Cook in August this year. Steve Jobs has been the heart and soul of Apple’s incredible and dynamic climb to be the most valuable company in the world.

As a true fan of Steve Jobs ourselves, we truly respect and miss all the guidance that this iconic person can provide and will be missed by everyone who has been following his progress.

A Heartiest Condolence to the person that we truly admire and may he rest in peace!

http://www.iphonemalaysiablog.com/news/news-steve-jobs-resigned-as-ceo

Apple yesterday unveiled a new iPhone, the iPhone 4S instead of the much anticipated iPhone 5 to a much disappointed crowd of Apple fans. After the announcement, the shares of Apple(AAPL) actually dropped over 5% before going back up and close at $372.50(down $2.10 for the day).

Many fans and diehard supporters of the Apple iPhone has been talking about the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event and was eagerly waiting for the new iPhone 5 to be revealed. This news was revealed by Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook who replaced Steve Jobs as the new CEO in August this year. Tim Cook provided some statistics on how Apple in particular the iPhone was doing in the first part of the presentation.

Among the highlights were the following:-

**  Apple has sold more iPhone 4 than all the other iPhones combined in the history of iPhone sales.

**  About 93% of all the Fortune 500 companies are either already using or testing the iPhone.

**  The Apple iPhones now account for about 5% of all mobile phone sales worldwide.

And unlike Steve Jobs who usually has lots of surprises for the Apple fans, Cook did not manage to pull out any rabbits out of his hat this time.

So, what is new with the iPhone 4S?  

Firstly, the S in the iPhone 4S stands for “Speed”. In terms of the look and feel, there is not much difference from its immediate predecessor iPhone 4. The iPhone 4S  will run on the A5 chipset which is used in the iPad 2. This gives it the same computing power of a laptop in a mobile device. The iPhone 4S will retail at $199 for the 16GB, $299 for the 32GB, and $399 for the 64GB with a two-year service contract with AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ), or Sprint (S). Not too sure how much this phone will cost when it is offered in Malaysia though.

So, what are the other improvements?

1.  New wireless system – with this new wireless system it can intelligently switch between 2 antennas when transmitting and receiving calls and data which will result in better call quality and higher download speeds respectively. The new iPhone 4S offers up to 5.8MBps upload and 14.4MBps download speed.

2.  Camera improvements – The iPhone 4S comes with 8Megapixel(3264 x 2448 resolution)  camera module compared to the iPhone 4 which has 5Megapixels(2592 x 1936 resolution). It also has a new sensor, state-of-the-art CMOS backside illumination sensor and a Hybrid IR filter for better color accuracy. In layman’s term, the new camera allows you to take clearer photos at a faster speed as well as shoot high definition 1080p videos.

3.  Voice control – This is the key feature of the iPhone 4S according to Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller. The feature is called “Siri”. This new feature is based on the voice activated application that Apple bought in 2010. Siri doesn’t just listen—it also speaks. To trigger Siri, you press and hold on the Home button, the same way Voice Control works on older iPhones today. This is going to be the app to check out as it is said to be “your intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.”

4.  AirPlay – This is a feature that is applicable in the iPad2 and being ported over to the iPhone 4S. This feature allows users to stream wirelessly to your Apple TV.  If you don’t have an Apple TV, you may use an HDMI cable to mirror over the wire, too.

Apple made an announcement yesterday afternoon that Steve Jobs has resigned as the CEO of Apple Computers. He will remain as Chairman of the company and he will be succeeded by Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cooks. Tim Cook is probably the best person to take over the role of CEO as he has been overseeing the company’s operation since Steve took a leave of absence due to his illness earlier this year. We believe Apple will be in good hands although the market has reacted by shedding more than 5% to $357.10 right after the announcement is made. Apple shares closed at $376.18 the previous day.

Steve Jobs has been the key person that has caused the major turnaround of the fortunes of the Apple Computers from the then ailing company. As a tribute to the great and outstanding person, the iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers would like to write a brief history about Steve Jobs, the man with the Midas touch.

The Story of the Great Legend, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was born on the 24th February, 1955 in San Francisco, California. His unwed mother actually was expecting a baby girl and hence decided to give him up for adoption. His mother has called up Paul and Clara Jobs in the middle of the night and asked if they would want to adopt her baby.

His mother’s wish is that Steve will be able to one day graduate from college. When she found out the Steve’s future parents were not college graduates themselves, she has refused to sign on the adoption documents. She later agreed to sign on it after Steve’s future parents gave her the assurance that they will send Steve to college.

Steve completed his high school in 1972 and attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He has decided to drop out from college because it was too expensive. Steve later joined a group called the Homebrew Computer Club in 1975. There, he met with Steve Wozniak who was trying to build a small computer. They later decided to form a computer company in 1976 which they called the Apple Computer Company. To raise the funds necessary to kick-start the company, they have sold their personal belongings to finance the initial start-up. The Apple Computer Company’s sales quickly grew to US$200Million in the first 3 years – a really amazing achievement for a start-up company!

Steve launched the highly user friendly Macintosh computer in 1984. Despite some of the great ease of use features that comes with the Macintosh, it did not do as well compared to their biggest competitor at that time, IBM. IBM computers are packed with more features for commercial use. This has also signaled the downfall of his career at Apple. After some disagreements over the vision and direction of the company with the board of directors of Apple, Steve Jobs was pressured to resigned as the CEO of the company that he has co-founded in 1985.

After leaving Apple, Steve has hired some of his ex-employees to start-up another company called NEXT in 1985. A year later, Steve has bought a small company called Pixar from George Lucas. Pixar is a computer animation company. 9 years after it was acquired by Steve, Pixar went on to launch a mega box office hit, Toy Story. Since then, Pixar has produced many more box office hits including A bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monster Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Toy Story 3, Up and many more.

Steve Jobs later sold the company Pixar to Disney and became one of the largest shareholder in Disney as well as a member of their board in 2006. In December 2006, Steve returned to Apple after Apple acquired Next Software. He then became the part time consultant to their CEO. In September 2007, he was named the interim CEO of Apple. In year 2000, the word “interim”  was officially removed from his title.

Since returning to Apple, Steve has launched the highly successful iPod, iMac, iTunes Store, iPhone, Macbook, iPad and many more.

Some of the major Milestones or Achievements that Apple has gained after his return are:-

1.  Becoming the largest seller of Music via its iTunes Store

2.  Becoming the largest Application seller via its iTunes AppStore

3.  Becoming one of the largest smartphone seller via its highly popular iPhone. Apple became the largest smartphone seller after it sold 20.34 million iPhones in the 2nd Quarter of 2011. For more details, the report here at Reuters.com

All these are certainly no small feat. He has also revolutionized the Tablet PC when he introduced the iPad. Many companies have launched the Tablet PC but failed in the past. But not Steve Jobs…..the iPads are one of the most successful Tablet PC launch after many failures. Now, everyone seems to be going into the Tablet PC market.

For all that he has done, we believe that he really deserves the title of Fortune Magazine’s “CEO of the Decade”.

Before we sign off, we would like to share one of the most interesting speech that Steve Jobs has shared at the Stanford University Graduation Ceremony in 2005 where he shared about his life, his career and his battle with cancer. There are many lessons to be learnt from this Marketing Genius….. enjoy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/steve-jobs-life-career-illness-love-001119381.html

There have been a lot of rumours lately on the exact launch date for the new iPhone 5 from the media news. A report by Boy Genius stated that one of the AT&T VP has told employees to prepare for the launch of the iPhone 5 in early October. There are also other reports that mentioned that Apple is planning to launch the iPhone 5 either on the 7th October or the 14th October. Anyway, all these will remain as rumour unless it has been confirmed by Apple.

Below are some additional rumours on how the iPhone will look like as reported by MacRumors.com. Below are some of the pictures published by them with the “anticipated” look of the iPhone 5. Let’s wait and see how true this rumour is.

i must say that these images of the potentially new look of the iPhone 5 do look pretty cool……

Personally, i am keeping my fingers crossed as to how this new look will really turn out. However, case manufacturers in China have been betting big on this design and is already manufacturing many of the cases based on the above dimensions. If the actual size and shape turns out to be different, it will be a big loss for these manufacturers.

If the iPhone 5 were to hit the US in early October, my guesstimate is that it will only hit our Malaysian shores sometime end of the year, just in time for a perfect gift for Christmas….

Apple finally became the largest company in the Unites States yesterday surpassing the oil titan Exxon Mobile. Apple’s market capitalization of US$339 billion managed to surpass Exxon Mobil market capitalization of US$337 billion because the oil giant has dropped more than 17% in the past 2 weeks due to the weakness in the crude oil price. Apple’s share has also dropped but by a much lesser percentage of only 8% in the past 2 weeks. Apple’s share has outperformed the rest of the tech sector which has dropped more than 12% ahead of the much speculated new release of the iPhone 5 in this coming Fall. With new versions of the iPhone and iPads to hit the market soon, investors are optimistic about the prospects of the Apple shares.

Looking back 10 years ago, the Apple share was only trading at a value that is below US$10 per share. How a company has changed in such a short period of time is indeed an amazing feat which many attributed to the golden touches of their CEO, Steve Jobs.

In fact, another amazing fact is that Apple is currently sitting on more cash than the Federal Reserve of the United States. This alone is a big testimony on how a well managed company has clearly outperformed the whole Administration of the United States of America in handling money.

Below is the Share Price and Market Capitalization Chart of Apple in the past 10 years. Anyone who has invested in this share must be smiling to the banks…..

Although this morning’s posting may not have much relation to the iPhone, iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers are compelled to write this article because it is important to get the Malaysian public to be aware of this high-tech scam that is happening in Malaysia(and many other countries). We have the opportunity to interview one of our close friend who was targetted by the internet phone scammers. We had interviewed our friend on what happened and he has provided us with all the details about the calls. Below is the story:-

Ricky(not his real name) from Penang got a call on his iPhone from a fixed line phone bearing the number of 03-22662222 three days ago. The person who called him identified himself as an “Inspector Chong” investigating a case involving the arrest of 2 Malaysians in Hong Kong by the name of “ABC” and “XYZ”(we are using ABC and XYZ since these are 2 fictitious names that the scammers have created). He has also informed Ricky that the conversation between him and the “Inspector” is recorded and can be used in court as evidence in the case. The “inspector” then proceeded to ask Ricky if he knows these 2 persons. Ricky said no and asked the “inspector” on how can he confirm or verify that he is a real inspector investigating this case. “Inspector Chong” then said that he is calling from the Bukit Aman Police Station and asked if he knows what Bukit Aman Police Station is. Ricky said yes but continued his question on how can he verify the identity of the police. “Inspector Chong” then asked Ricky to make a call to Telekom and verify the number himself before he calls him again later.

Ricky did the verification of the number via Telekom and internet directory and confirmed that the number 03-22662222(which appeared on his iPhone) was in fact the Main number of Bukit Aman Police Station. Later in the day, “Inspector Chong” called again and repeated that the conversation is recorded and that the conversation may be used a proof in court. Ricky seems to be a bit more convinced that it could be real now.

The “Inspector Chong” proceeded to inform Ricky that the Hong Kong Police have caught 2 Malaysians involved in forging passports and other documents by the name of “ABC” and “XYZ” and asked if Ricky knows about them. Ricky answered no. The” inspector” has then cooked up a story that he has just finished a call conference with the Hong Kong Interpol and from what he understood, these 2 persons “ABC” and “XYZ” had 40 photocopies of IC with them and one of them was Ricky’s. “Inspector Chong” said that the Malaysia Police is working with the Hong Kong Interpol to nab these people and Ricky is now one of the suspect in the case. He has advised Ricky to give a call to a police officer in Hong Kong by the name of “Inspector Lee” in order to record the statement as well as to clear his name. “Inspector Chong” then gave Ricky “Inspector Lee’s” Hong Kong Phone number. “Inspector Chong” has warned Ricky not to share this with anyone as they do not want others to know that Police is investigating the case as this may cause a “tipoff” to the bad guys to be more careful and alert.

Ricky called “Inspector Lee” and “Inspector Lee” identified himself and told Ricky that he is currently busy with some other cases right now and that he will contact Ricky tomorrow to get more information.

The next day “Inspector Lee” contacted Ricky and informed him that the call is recorded and he is calling to investigate the case of the arrest of “ABC” and “XYZ” in connection with the case of document forgery. He proceeded to explain that these two persons “ABC” and “XYZ” uses other people’s identity to make documents like ICs and Passports and insert “other people’s” photos into the documents and that this is a serious offence. There are 40 other Malaysians’ identity that they possess and “Inspector Lee” is checking if these 40 Malaysians are either their partners, victims or they sold their own identity for money. “Inspector Lee” then told Ricky that he needs his full details in order to classify him as either the partners, victims or someone who sold their identity for money(which is also an offence).

“Inspector Lee” then proceeded to ask Ricky about details of the banks that he has and how much money he has in the banks. This is when Ricky suspected something is not right and refused to divulge such information as he needed more verification. “Inspector Lee” said that he totally understand Ricky’s concern as there are many scams and frauds around and has asked Ricky to verify with “Inspector Chong” before proceeding.  Wow-another superb acting here!

“Inspector Chong” then called Ricky and ask him what his concerns are and warned him that it is important to assist the Hong Kong Interpol in the investigation or else he may be one of the suspects in the case. Ricky then informed “Inspector Chong” that he will only divulge confidential information if he can see a real Police Officer at a Police Station before proceeding. Ricky happens to know a Police Officer in Penang and has asked “Inspector Chong” to give this Police Officer a call and get Ricky to come in to the Police Station in Penang for further discussion. “Inspector Chong” agreed to call the Police Officer to contact Ricky but as you know the rest of the story….  it never happened.

This is a very high tech mobile phone scams which the public needs to be aware of and hence iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers have decided to publish this article as public awareness so that we will not be victims to these scammers.

From Ricky’s experience, these conmen are very good actors and really behave and sounded like Real Police Officers. Secondly, they are using technology to “mask” the number that appeared on your mobile phone in order to trick people into believing that the call was originated from Bukit Aman Police Station Main Line 03-22662222.

iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers have done some investigation on this technology. This technology is called “Phishing”

Phishing is a technique used to acquire sensitive information such as credit card details, bank account details, usernames, passwords by pretending to be a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication like email or phone(voice or sms). The Voice over IP(VOIP) technology allows this to be done.

iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers have also checked with the Police on cases related to this and have got confirmation from the Police that Statements will not be taken over the phone. All statements will be recorded in writing at the Police Station.

There are a lot of phone scams happening and one that is recently busted and reported in the Star is as follows:-

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/6/11/nation/8880995&sec=nation

Below are some of the learnings from Ricky’s incident:-

1.  Even if you receive a call from the Bukit Aman Police Station, it may not be the real thing as Phishing technology allow scammers to mask the phone number to be displayed on your mobile phone.

2.  They are targetting people outside of Kuala Lumpur or Selangor as these people cannot go to the Bukit Aman Police Station to verify the identity of the Inspector. Also, they may use other ranking officers like ASP, DSP, Chief Inspector or whatever title. Irregardless of who calls you, do not reveal any personal or confidential information over the phone.

3.  The example given above is just “one” of the many version of stories that they are using. We believe the scammers are also doing some data collection and testing on which versions are the most effective at getting their victims to reveal as much information as possible. Irregardless of what stories or threats that are being cooked up, remember your rights as a citizen. You are innocent until proven guilty not the other way round.

4.  Scammers seldom work alone. They normally work in pairs or groups to make it look more real. Even if it seems to be supported by “others”. These people may be their own gang and never trust them.

5.  Scammers normally want the victim to keep things to themselves because once the victims start sharing with others the chances of others believing it as well is very low so they may give threat that this is a highly confidential operation and ask the victim not to share it with anyone else including those close to the victim. When you hear this, be even more alert and aware that this is a possible scam. Only trust the “police officer” if you see him in person at the Police Station.

6.  Scammers normally take advantage of 2 of our weakest human emotions i.e. Fear and Greed. In the example above, the Fear tactic was used. There are a lot of scams that involve Greed like “winning a lottery”, “inheritance”, “lucky draw” etc. Be aware of these as well.

In view of the sophisticated technology being used and the great acting by the scammers, iPhoneMalaysiaBloggers feel that many people may actually fall victim to such an act. The only way to prevent this is by increasing the awareness about such a tactic and educating the public and hence why we have decided to make this posting.

Please share this with your family and friends so that they are aware of such the phishing technology and this type of scam that is happening in Malaysia and around the world. Together we can fight this!