Incoming Sep 16 would mark 1 year on my first domain name. Even though the domain is 1 year old i, but in it is not really my 1 year in internet entrepreneurship/blog sphere, as the domain name left unattended for few months after I bought it.

Buying my own domain when I have less knowledge of internet at the time is one of the best decision I ever made . It’s kinda risky, and I’m scared that I won’t get back the initial capital that I spent within 1 year, which was proven wrong. But before I jump into buying web hosting and getting my own domain name, I have simple website build using GooglePages at http://zakifahmi.googlepages.com/ which still exist, but I took it off line few weeks back with intention to made an enhancement on it

1 year old in Internet can be considered quite old I guess, as technology and internet is moving in a very fast pace, whereas new websites and blogs come out everyday, and new invention (software/hardware) released and furthermore we have so called web 2.0 coming. So, all this things has made the internet is very challenging but interesting for us. But the most important thing here is, more and more peoples in the world were connected to internet. What does this means? Simple, more people will visit and click your ads (just kidding)

I read couple of blogs before, of what they have achieved within 1 period of time, so I think I should compile what I have learned as well, as an audit for what had I’d done and maybe some guidance for you. But not now, I’ll try to complete it in the next few days

Off Topic
By end of next month, I’ll be relocated to Cyberjaya (mini Silicon Valley in Malaysia), so I’ll busy packing my stuff and maybe selling some of them especially unnecessary stuff by doing some sort of garage sales at my housing area. I hope that I can keep updating this blog as frequent as I can, but sometime, I get loss or the idea dried out

I have one interesting story about credit card which I believe some of you might have hear before. Last week, my friend, Doe (not real name) receives his new credit card from one of the financial institution in Malaysia as a gift because of his participation in one of their loan scheme. The story began 2 days after that, when all of sudden he received few phone calls from unknown person offering that and that.

First day
Doe received one phone call from 1 ‘tourism agent’ asking him if he can come over to one hotel in KL to claim the holiday package that he won from their lucky draw competition. Unfortunately (fortunate actually when he discover the real thing) Doe is outstation so he unable come over to claim the prize. At this time, that agent didn’t mention

Second Day
Doe received another phone call from tourism agent who claims their company is associated with ‘Ministry of Tourism’ in offering holiday package in accordance to Visit Malaysia 2007. Yet another holiday package offered and this time is was so tempting and Doe accepted the offer and giving his full credit card. Doe said that, it seems they know what Doe’s credit card initial number is. This is the first time Doe has card, so he is unaware not to simply give the last 4 digit card number to anyone (poor him)

Upon confirmation, Doe happily told his friend (and me) that he just sign up very attractive holiday package from this company. His friend alert Doe, that he recently encountered the same thing before but with different method. Upon realizing something fishy here, based on his friend’s advice, Doe call that credit card center which then contact that company which in the process of finalizing the transaction. Luckily the process hasn’t finalized, and Doe immediately cancel the transaction.

This time, when Doe ask from where they get his information, they insist that this is information from their database, which they refuse to answer from where it came from.

Third Day
Doe decide to cancel the credit card due to what was happen on the past 2 days. As Doe spoken with the clerk who handles the cancellation request, the clerk inform us the same thing that happens to him a while back when he just received his first credit card. It seems, this incident has happen since before.. interesting

Unfortunately the call didn’t stop there. Another call received from someone who claim from local English radio station, said that they have 1 event going on now, and offering something as a prize. The funny thing is, he spoke in Malay even though Doe try speaking with him in English (Doe said that person does not seem fluent in English). Doe let them talking first, and when the person trying to persuade Doe to join the contest, Doe told him that he just cancel his credit card. Immediately, that person said thanks and drops the phones. Since then no more phone calls receive offering this kind of stuff. Thank God

What made us puzzled?
There are few thing that made me don’t understand about the whole situation.
1. How come they know that Doe just receive his credit card?
2. How come they have our initial credit card number except the last 4 digit?
3. Is it legal to distribute the credit card applicant’s information to third party with or without bad intention?
4. Who did that, does it done without the financial institution knowledge (inside party), or it was that financial institution intention to get the applicant using the credit card immediately so that they will get more profit from that? Or is that someone from credit card processing (e.g.: MasterCard, Visa) that distribute the information?

Moral of the story
1. If you received call from unknown few days after you got your card, do not entertain them
2. Do not simply reveal you credit card number (especially the last 4 digit) to anyone (except to that financial institution itself)
3. Do no accept free credit card offered from any loan scheme.

Whether it is legal or not doing that way is beyond my knowledge, but this is indeed disturbance to our privilege, when someone has our financial information. If you guys have the same experience before, please share so that we can avoid this kind of problem in future.