Tuesday, March 18, 2008

INDONESIAN MONEY MATTERS

Regular readers would know that I am not really keen on the mammalian sub-species called accountants and cats both of which could be called a feral species of no real use to any country. It must be something to with numbers (or something really evil I did in my last life, say watching a full game of soccer) the stump is forever plagued by telephone calls from various dubious, Jakarta based lunatics who claim to be able to manage my money on my behalf and earn me a gazillion dollars return every year.

Invariably, staffed by young, earnest expatriates or smooth talking, worldly nationals or the biggie, the smart trendy young lady but primarily young expatriates, these pseudo accountants dog you day and night unless you are quite rude (the girls are fun tho). Basic checks of their websites (?) and credentials leads you down the path of darkness as you try and discover; where exactly are these people incorporated? What accounting standards do they use? and so forth.

Besides the credential issue, the Stump is confused by one simple premise. If you wackers as so good at picking stock market winners and making a gazillion bucks, why are you working for a living?

A similar money for nothing scam is the “pay for share advice companies” which do huge business in Australia and are starting up here in Indonesia. Have a look at the table of recommendations for in Australia. Fair dinkum the Stump could have done better with a brick and a dartboard.

Best way I have found to deal with these time wasters and cold callers (providing you have a couple hours to kill) is to string them along (its good for a laugh). Once its gets to the crunch and they have virtually guaranteed the 15%-20% plus routine, just ask them for the $1000 surety from their own pocket.

“Mate, you obviously believe in the product and are very sure it’s going to make the returns you have said. How about this then, I will make the investments you suggest but you give me a $1000 of YOUR money. What ever the investment makes, I will add least that much to your $1000 surety. That way if we win..we both win if we lose we both lose..

Stump has had no takers yet!

P.S The Stump recommends by US dollars and lots of them..(of course the Stump’s last big tip was the Iraq Dinah but whose counting/..

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Yes!! if your that good..........................

Cold calling for business can't be your hobby, you would be sitting by a beach counting the money thats rolling on in!!!

Scammers!!! Bastards!!! probably drop-outs from accountant school!!!!

I like the challenge idea, stand behind your product/skill, scammers.
Reminds me once I went to an "Amway" wealth generation thingy by another name, and the presenter kept saying what would I like out of life, i.e. money, wealth, new car, big house, overseas holidays. He keep pushing what I wanted so told him good health and a happy family. F**ked his whole presentation!! No answer to it, all over, he went home.

Unknown said...

Do what I did to one particularly annoying company.

1)
Get their fax number
2)
Get a thermal fax machine and on a piece of paper write "Eff Off" in felt tip pen every two inches on a 24 inch long sheet of thermal fax paper.
3)
Dial Number after 6pm and feed the message into the machine.
4)
When first part of the message has passed the scanner, selloptape leading end of paper to tail end of paper.
5)
When the looped message is sending nicely, walk away and wait until the next morning to hang up.

*Result*

pj said...

So this is how it is in Jakarta? Used to be unit trust salesman. Those guys would start at one end of Cilandak and work their way through. Times change I suppose but its the same old easy money dream that these guys are selling.

oigal said...

GJ..Anway...don't get me started ...grin..

You sound like me..enough to live nice but no so much to lose touch..

P.J... Stump is not in Jak but that seems to be where they breed must be something to do with all the open drains..

Dili..nasty nasty nasty...but funny

Rob Baiton said...

Dilligaf...

Awesome! It never dawned on me to tape the ends of the paper together!