A resident in Bandar Kinrara, Kuala Lumpur, learnt a painful lesson last Sunday when he ended up purchasing "gifts" he had supposedly won through a sales gimmick organised by an electrical company.

Feeling angry and cheated, Noorazlan Zainal Abidin, 37, called up malaysiakini this morning to relate his experience of being duped by a "Scratch & Win" gift scam organised by Aowa Electrical Sdn. Bhd.

Noorazlan received the coupon in his mailbox recently in conjunction with the "Selamat Hari Raya & Tahun Baru Cina" promotion.

Upon scratching the box on the coupon, it revealed "three ketupats" which entitled him to claim a free RM1,588 Pioneer Mini VCD home theatre system plus a RM100 cash voucher. Thinking it was his lucky day, Noorazlan and his wife went to the electrical outlet in IOI Mall.

However, in order to redeem the free VCD gift and the cash voucher, they were asked to buy one of the many electronic items offered by the shop.

"My wife and I looked around and found an Aowa microwave oven priced at RM2,500. Although we felt it was expensive, we bought the oven as we were intending to buy one anyway and wanted to redeem the gift," Noorazlan said.

He added that upon paying for the item, the salesperson at the shop told him that he was also entitled to a lucky draw, upon which he was immediately told that he was a winner.

"I was so happy when I discovered I had won another microwave oven, a water filter and a vacuum cleaner though the lucky draw," he said.

Noorazlan was however told that he had to pay "taxes" and "transportation" charges for the three lucky draw items before he could claim them.

"The total price for the lucky draw prizes were RM7,000. I was told that I had to pay a 19.8 per cent tax on each item," he said, adding that he paid approximately RM1,381 in taxes and transportation charges for the three items.

"In total, I ended up paying RM3,881 for all the five items; two microwave ovens, the VCD home theater system, vacuum cleaner and water filter,"he said.

"The salespersons in the shop even had the guts to ask me to treat them to lunch for being such a lucky winner. Since it was all too good to be true and feeling jubilant, I gave them RM50 for lunch," Noorazlan added.

Reality struck Noorazlan when he returned home. Feeling slightly suspicious, he began doing a search on the Internet for the brand name of his prizes.

"All the items, except for the Pioneer VCD set, were of the Aowa brand. I searched the Net for two days but could not find anything on that particular brand," he said, adding that he also looked into an electrical shop in the Yaohan Mall and found a National microwave oven with similar specifications to the Aowa microwave oven, priced at only RM1,100.

"This means that the RM2,500 I paid for the first microwave oven was inclusive of the RM1,588 VCD system, while the "tax" was actually payment for the three lucky draw items," lamented Noorazlan.

When Noorazlan contacted the company headquarters in Kuala Lumpur later, he was told that the managers were on leave for Chinese New Year.

"Not satisfied, I called up the Aowa outlet in IOI Mall and was told that those in the outlet were only salesmen and they could not help me. I called the company headquarters again, but this time asked specifically for one of the managers, Chua, and was put through to him," continued Noorazlan.

Chua, however, told Noorazlan that the matter was beyond the headquarters' control and he should refer to the outlet manager in IOI Mall.

"I have now been told by the salesperson in the outlet that the manager, John Lim, is in Sarawak and would only be able to return my call next Thursday," he said regrettably.

Malaysiakini

reported a similar scam on Wednesday revealing another victim's experience in Seremban. The article, entitled [#1]Gift scam lures lucky winners(Feb 2)[/#] , aims to caution the "lucky winners" of such promotions in the future.

"I am going to make copies and distribute the malaysiakini article in front of the Aowa shop to let others know," Noorazlan vowed.

Meanwhile, attempts by malaysiakini to contact the Aowa headquarters and its outlet in IOI Mall were unsuccessful as no one answered repeated phone calls made to them.