Sunday, January 29, 2012

How to Deal with Anonymous Call Smartly?

I”m not sure why lately I have been receiving so many anonymous calls either there are from banks, internet providers, or others. They usually call you to sell their promotions and most of the time is “FREE”! :) But the strange thing is most of these offers or promotions are not mentioned in their official website according to those who call me. Huh? Oh yes, they usually say this only for phone call promotion and you’re one being selected.


How to deal with anonymous call smartly?

That depends on whether you’re single and available or not? Yes, you do not hear wrongly. When you’re single, you want to meet people as many as possible and you do not want to miss a single chance to miss your future wife. Sorry, I’m talking from a male perspective because >90% of such call is coming from a pretty voice lady. :D Okay, so how should you deal with such call?

These are the few options you can choose:


Option 1: For Male and Single :)

Anonymous call: This is calling from XXXX. We would like to offer you XXXX and it is free. Blah, blah, blah… not sure why they’re very good in taking and usually they talk for quite some time…

You: Yes, I’m interest but can we meet to talk about this in detail? It it is very hard for me to understand what your’re talking without talking to your face to face. Also, can I have your h/p number as well just in case I do not see you so that I can call you?

Your objective here is to meet. That’s it and drive the conversation to meet her no matter what she talks. If she doesn’t want to or imply not to, just say “Bye Bye” to her and “Sorry I can’t understand this without talking to the person 1:1”.  This option is not for everyone especially you’re female. But if you’re male and single, are you sure you do not want to go for option 1? lol!!!



Option 2: For Interested People

If you are interested in the promotion or the offer, you still want to meet them but make sure you meet them in their office. For example, if bank calls you, make an appointment with them in bank and just remember do not make an appointment outside of the bank.

What if this offer or promotion only for phone call? You have 2 options. First option is to reject, the second option is continue to analyse this person. But go for this option only if you think you’re smart. What you need to do is to “Wait and See” what information that he/she is trying to get from you and try to minimize providing your information to him/her.

These are few things to consider when they start asking information from you:
  • Are those information relevant? Assuming if they ask about your credit card number, what they need this information for since the offer is free? You can ask them and listen to their respond whether is reasonable. 
  • Don’t they already have such information? Think of this way, why the bank wants to ask for your credit card number since they already have it? You can just tell them, you already have it. :)
  • Verify them by asking them few questions about your personal. What is my I/C number? What is my email address? Ask few more if possible. If they don’t know, just challenge them. They should already know such information.


Option 3: For Not Interested People

I’m usually this type of people but I’m little bit polite at first (usually) because I do not reject them directly. I still want to know what they offer also and to verify them at the same time. This is how I usually go:

Me: Can you please send me the information to my email? I will get in touch with you if I”m really interested. 

Anonymous call: Sorry, I don’t have your email. Can you give me your email?

Me: You should already have my email.

Anonymous call: I don’t have.

Me: Then, you will have to figure out that yourself.

Most of my accounts are linked to my email but if they don’t have it, then it is something wrong already. Don’t you think so? If they really do not have my email,  I think that is the problem that they need to figure out.


Which option do you choose usually?

I tried option 1 before when I was young. lol!  Unfortunately in practical, they don’t want to meet you! :D So I don’t get any chances to meet those  cute voice pretty girls.

For option 2, I tried that before too but it ends up they can’t explain why they need such irrelevant information from me. It was like about few years ago.

For option 3, I tried a lot these days because the anonymous calls are really a lot. So far, I only received 1 email out of don’t know how many calls and it turned out is the valid one. Later, I met the banker in bank to understand their products more and it turned out is a pretty lady. Not bad huh? But at the end, I still do not buy from them.

Any experience that you would like to share?
  
P/S: I talked about this because I have a friend’s family member getting cheated by this type of anonymous call. What surprises me is the banks also do that. I think banks should stop calling people to promote their products because many cannot tell whether they’re real and this also creates scam opportunity! Don't you guys think so?

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Welcome to 2012, What Are Your Resolutions?

Time flies and it has been quite some time I has not blogged about new year post since 2009. I think I should do this now because 2012 could be the last year that I can do this. Who knows the doomsday is true? I don’t want to miss the chance. :) D

You can also read my previous new year post (if you curious in my past):


Top 5 Accomplishments in the Past
  • Exceeded my career growth goal. Annual increment way beyond 7% annually and get promoted within 3 years to next level. Sounds good huh? But still, I”m not sure if this is a good thing because this makes me stuck even harder!
  • Health has been improving. Good cholesterol (HDL) has been increasing to the normal range and no longer have high uric acid. Sounds good but still having a lot of bad cholesterol and triglycerides that out of the normal range. The fatty liver has not been fixed. Overall, I still rated myself in bad condition.
  • Investment return is around 6% but good news is earn a lot of extra money from company stock options (way beyond 7%). Use the money from stock options to buy a landed property in Penang. This is something good to be an employee.
  • Finished settle my housing loan in 5 years. Suppose to be a good news because free from debt. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen because just kick off another loan account for the new house in Penang. Debt like never ending but I hope this is a good debt!
  • Part time blogging gains few more readerships especially for my financial and software blogs. The traffic has been increasing (i.e. ~15%) slowly as compared to last year. The rest of my blogs are as usual, not much increasing traffic due to low quantity of content.

Top 5 Resolutions in 2012

Improve Heath

Sounds simple huh? It is not that simple because every year I have this resolution. These are the few things that I have been doing in the past 2 months and I should continue to do that:
  1. Reduce meal by > 50% and eat very less meat and sugar.  
  2. Exercise everyday for 1 hour
Measure of success is to fix my medical report. I should do the check up every 3 months.

Stock Investment

Study and become familiar with technical analysis. Select few companies and perform both fundamental and technical analysis on them and blog about it.

Measure of success is to have ROI > 14%.

Migration to Australia

Study and research the pros and cons of migrating to Australia. Apply for PR when the possibility to get is higher than 80%. Also, look at what are the skills that I need to acquire so that I can get a job there (assuming if I decide to migrate there). Unless there is an semi-conductor field there (but unlikely), then I will have less worry. Things still at the early stage at this point in time anyway.

Measure of success is to apply migration to Australia by end of 2012.

Setup Travel Blog

Since my life partner has been traveling to so many places, she is asking my help to setup a blog for her. I think that is a good idea too. Anyway this shouldn’t be very hard but I think the hardest part is more on the content. I will leave that to her and hopefully she is not just saying for fun. We will see…

Measure of success is to post 12 posts by end of Dec. This is the goal I set to her. lol! :)

Stretch goal: Become iOS Developer

Not sure if this is realistic or not because I have been wanting to do this for quite sometime. The thing is I need to get the Mac book air to do this which I have been unwilling to invest in the past. Also, time is another factor. That’s why I put this as a stretch goal in 2012.

Measure of success is to develop one application for iPad or iPhone by end of 2012 and get approved in “App Store”.


What are your 2012 resolutions?

Have you set your goals or resolutions yet for 2012? If you’re blogger, you may paste your link here so I will take a look at that as well. Setting goals needs to be S.M.A.R.T if you do not aware of this. The hardest part for me for setting goals is “achievable” because I usually do not accomplish all the goals I set. However, I think that’s the right way too because you do not want to achieve 100% of your goals. This basically means your goals are not challenging enough.


Please set your goals if you haven't do it. You may have different goals. For example. goals for your personal, goals for your business and goals as a employee of a company.

Wish you guys all the best and Happy New Year 2012!!


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