Bloody People who Scams

Just last week I received a call from this Chinese sounding girl inviting me to some event held in Sydney's Hyde Park and since I reside in Melbourne, it was hardly possible that I attend the event, which was held in the evening of that call. She asked if it was alright for me to enter my name in some lucky draw for that evening, thinking nothing of it, I gave her my name. Lo and behold, the next day, she called to tell me that I have won second prize in the lucky draw, big prize of 1,000,000 Hong Kong dollars, which is equivalent to aussie 135,000 there about. So, she went about reading the "rights" to claiming the prize and asked me for my bank account number and drivers' license number. Being totally gullible, I gave it to her.

About an hour later, she called back telling me that since I am not a resident of Hong Kong and the law stipulates that anything more than $100,000 has to be taxed and so I will need to send over about $5K to claim that prize money. Thank god for Thomas, he thought something does not sound quite right so we went about checking up on the company and stuff. They, of course provided a website of the company that does not work and a check with Hyde Park confirmed his suspicions that it's all just a farce. So we told her straight up that we do not want the prize money. She even provided a phone number of the other second prize winner for us to verify that it actually happened (but that was 3 days after we asked for it and we did not bother - too fishy).
But boy, these people are very very persistent. They call every other day and whenever you tell them you are not interested or whatever, a phone call in the background could be heard. For instance, when they are telling you that you have won and there is another prize winner, she will put you on hold and pick up another call - supposedly from the other prize winner claiming to have received the money blah blah.

Like what my colleague said, there is nothing like free money and what probably is too good to be true is usually not true. Thank goodness I did not have to part with 5K to learn a lesson. So beware people who scam, the next time I won't be as nice or stupid! HMPH!