I don't normally do Public Service Announcements.
I'm not a bleeding heart.
Then again, if someone else has done the heavy lifting, I wouldn't mind help create more awareness for it.
There are too many scams in Singapore nowadays.
Let's help to keep a lid on it.
The last thing we need is for scammers of the world to think Singaporeans are an easy mark...
Just promise the moon and bei kambing Singaporeans will believe anything and everything!
We can get new email accounts for free nowadays.
Old fogeys may remember there was a time during the dial-up internet days that we have to be paying customers of a internet service provider before we can get access to our own email accounts.
Now why do Google or Microsoft give us web email accounts for free?
How about Facebook or YouTube?
You don't pay a single cent right?
OK, there are premium accounts where we do pay to avoid those annoying ads.
Got ads free; no ads must pay....
Hold that thought.
Using Google is free. Hosting my blog at Blogger is free. A lot of mobile games are free to play too.
Nope.
We're not their customers.
How can we be their "customers" when we are not paying them anything?
We are in fact on the menu that they offer to their paying customers. (New readers may want to watch the video in my previous blog post)
Want to reach out to youths from age 18 to 25?
Females only.
And located just in Singapore, JB, and Batam?
No problem!
Ahem, this is my fee.
Anyone still wondering why traditional media like print and TV are suffering... While social media is booming?
Targeted ads.
(Targeted sounds innocent; but can be quite scary when you think about it. Big brother watching you...)
For most people. We don't care. Just as long anything that's free, its win-win!
Look, we are nobody. Who cares if someone knows what websites we've visited for the past month?
Or our email or WhatsApp conversations can be recorded and pried by interested parties?
Fair enough.
But what if we are paying customers yet we are still on the menu?
The 1MBD scandal is quite telling.
Imagine paying for independent research yet the so called analyst report turned out to be just an advertorial for their real paying customer who just want to unload their stuffs onto you...
How about your friendly and ever so helpful independent broker (can be equities, property, or insurance)?
Is his real customer you or the principals he representing?
This example even more sad.
You happy, happy pay for an overseas property investing course, without realising you are the captive audience for that overseas developer that's paying your guru above industry average commissions to offload their unsold developments...
And you paid to get caught some more!
During my primary school days, I loved to watch the Twilight Zones.
Some episodes really stuck in my mind even after all these years.
This episode is one of them:
To those of us in sales or have profit and loss responsibilities, this is not new.
There are no vegetarians or vegans when it comes to the bottom line.
But then again, when a person has a hole in his heart, and is desperately clutching at straws, he is at his most vulnerable.
This applies not only in our community of get rich tryhards.
We see it everywhere.
In politics; in religion especially; and most prevalent while climbing the corporate career.
Remember that time when your long time no see friend/classmate called you out from the blue?
Your enthusiasm to reconnect with old friendship came crashing down the moment he shoved the cookbook across the dining table towards you:
"To Serve Man".
