Beware the next time you receive a "Scratch & Win" coupon in your mail box. It could be a gift scam organised by a major electrical company with branches in shopping centres nationwide.

The company, Aowa Electrical Sdn Bhd, has been sending "Scratch & Win" coupons to households which it claimed were randomly selected from a computer list since last December. "Lucky" customers who received the coupon are asked to scratch boxes which reveal a number of prizes.

But there is a catch. When the "winners" go to claim their prizes, they are informed that they would have to first buy other highly priced items being offered by Aowa.

One victim who was lured by the gimmick was A. F. Gan, 52, a fishmonger at the Seremban Central Market. Gan received an envelope bearing the LG logo, a South Korean electronic company, in mid-December last year.

Upon scratching, the coupon revealed "five stars", entitling Gan to claim a free RM1,550 air conditioner and a cash voucher worth RM100.

With great anticipation, Gan and his family went to the retail shop at the Terminal One Shopping Plaza in Seremban to redeem the gift. To his dismay, a salesman told him that he had to buy one of the several promotion offers, all priced at above RM1,550 in order to qualify for the gift.

"How can they claim I have won a prize if they then impose a condition to buy a product that would have covered the price of the gift?" Gan complained.

"Essentially, they are forcing us to buy two items under the guise of one being a free gift!" he lamented.

Two days ago, Gan received another mail from the same shop in conjunction with a "Selamat Hari Raya & Tahun Baru Cina" promotion. The envelope displayed the logos of major electronic companies LG, Thomson and Pioneer.

A "Scratch & Win" coupon enclosed indicated that Gan had won a RM1,588 Pioneer Mini VCD Home Theatre System plus a RM100 cash voucher. However, Gan and his family are not so easily duped this time.

Malaysiakini

called up the company in Seremban this morning posing as a "lucky" winner. A saleswoman said, "You could come and collect the gift with a purchase of a product at above RM100."

After inquiring further, the saleswoman admitted that the cheapest product in the shop was a vaccum cleaner priced at more than RM1,000.

Asked why she did not tell the actual price of the goods on offer, she said, "We cannot tell customers that our products are priced at more than RM1,000. Otherwise, they wouldn't come to our shop."

The sole distributor of LG products, Scott & English Electronics, confirmed that it had received numerous complaints from irrate customers.

A sales manager of the company who spoke on condition of anonymity, however, said that they would not take any action against Aowa as it was an internal sales gimmick within the company and it was beyond the distributor's control.

"There is nothing we can do because Aowa is one of our dealers. They buy the products from us and this is a promotion within its company. Furthermore, although our brand logo is on the envelope, the company did not use our address," he said.

Meanwhile, the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Association (Fomca) said that it had received several similar complaints over the years and such gimmicks were becoming rampant among electronic companies.

Fomca deputy secretary general T. Indrani told malaysiakini that the issue had been brought to the attention of the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs but so far no action had been taken.

"The Ministry had gazetted a Consumer Protection Act late last year to protect consumers from being cheated. There are enough provisions in the Act to prosecute those who organise such gimmicks but it is for the Ministry to enforce the law," Indrani said.