KawanU: "Trusted, Reliable & Reputation" Bull-shit!!!

After returning from Melbourne last week, I found my 4-year-old Toshiba fridge in my Serai Suajana apartment not refrigerating at all. I approached a fridge dealer in SS2 for help; unfortunately he couldn’t give me any priority. Out of anxiousness, I surfed the net and came across this KawanU site.

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"Trusted, Reliable & Reputation" Bull-shit!!!

It was impressive, except the English. One of its leaders read: Trusted, Realiable & Reputation, followed by “You can try our service, and we always strive to give our best service & solution. Our reputation on satisfied customer, which they willing to always introduce their friends & relative to us.”

It was obviously cheeena English, but never mind; I gave the number a call.

Two men duly appeared. “Oh, I see the problem! We have to replace the heater. We have to cart it to our workshop. The heater would cost 399 and workmanship 80. A deposit of 100 is payable.”

They were taking my fridge and yet I had to pay a deposit of 100? Moreover, why should they take the heavy fridge just to replace an element?

Again, never mind lah, since this is what Malaysian tradies do in the country. What choice do I have?

A day later, the office called up. “Water has gone into your sensor; it will cost 121.” Again, what to do?

“We will deliver the fridge on Saturday morning,” the chap over the phone promised.

Came Saturday, no call whatsoever from KawanU. I tried at least 20 times to reach the mobile number that was given. I could only hear the standard “leave a message” voice mail.

I finally got through to them on Monday morning.

“Oh, sorry; someone passed away. We had no handphone to contact anyone.”

That’s the Malaysian way of doing “asset control”, I suppose. Never mind lah, since they had an unforeseen situation.

The fridge was finally delivered. On closer scrutiny, I found the freezer door could not close properly. Again never mind lah, since it is not a new fridge.

We went to the market to pick up fresh supplies – fish, meat, etc.

After a couple of hours, my wife noticed that the fish and meat were not freezing.

It WAS not working.

We called KawanU.

“We will check it out and come back to you in the afternoon.” This was the last time I heard from them.

Fish and meat could not wait; we went straight to pick up a new fridge.

So much for the type of reliable service KawanU is bragging about!

But I just cannot understand why Malaysia-made products do not last. I have a Maytag fridge in Melbourne. It has been with us for donkey years. I had to repair the thermostat once, but the repairman was very professional. He didn’t have to cart the fridge back. I remember it cost only A$150 for the whole job! It is still running strong now.

Don’t count on KawanU to repair your stuff! It is better to go to a dealer you know!

What a relief; I got rid of my BM323i!!!

I finally got rid of my BM323i!

I sold my less-than-two-year-old 200A Benz last year to take over my son’s car, after seeing that he could not get rid of it at a decent price. It was bought tax-exempt in 2009. We thought the market value was about MYR125K. Alas, the highest offer we got was 90K. If we sold at that time, we had to pay excise duty of about 14K.

I decided to keep it myself. But it was a disaster from Day 1!

The air-conditioner was not working well, so was the cooler and the washer pump. A few thousands gone! Next we were advised the suspension had to be replaced, again a couple of thousands. Next the sensors, followed by ignition coil. I had to send it for “treatment” each time I came back to Kuala Lumpur. I even joked with the workshop owner William Ng that he had cast a spell on my car; it must visit him each time I was in town. (I decided not to go to Bavaria; they were just marking around each time the car was sent there for service. As a matter of fact, the car was all along maintained by Bavaria. How could they not detect all the impending faults? I have now come to understand that their service “consultants” are cons in the first place. Without computers to tell them, they are as blind as you and I in engineering matters!)

In that one year, I must have spent more than 20K to repair the car.

Chu, the dealer who bought my A200, could only offer 71K for the BM. With this I had to pay about 12.5K on excise and sales tax.

But I was most relieved! On taking delivery of the car, Chu gave me a lift to Cycle & Carriage to pick up a Benz C200 I had ordered. On the way, he noticed that the gear train was not smooth. Too bad, Chu; that’s your problem!

But BM is so popular; I suppose people buy it because many are “company” cars. BM appeals because their models look flashy. I will never buy one myself!

Yes, you can say Benz is old man’s car. If the batch can also be found for vehicles used in rough and tumble conditions, such as heavy trucks and commercial pick-ups, you can rest assured the engineering is first-class.

Try one yourself. Don’t go with the herd; be more discerning! 

High IQ = Low Commonsense?

I used to hold many hitherto academically brilliant contemporaries in awe. I admired them for their ability to solve very complex scientific and mathematical problems and to cite facts and figures as though they are in their fingertips. Many still have such abilities, but they appear totally dumb dumb when it comes to common sense stuff.

One of them sees a conspiracy in every event that captures world headlines. He is certain that MH370 was hijacked by Americans and ISIS was the creation of the Americans. The world's financial system will soon undergo a global currency reset, again thanks to stupid American Dollar. Now the good Asian Elders who are the real owners of all the gold in Fort Knox, and hence been controlling all the “Global Collateral Accounts” for the past decades, are galloping to save the world. They are about to neutralise the evil and greedy Americans soon. And soon Obama will resign to give way to a new president and America is already called the Republic of the United States if America. So on and so forth!

If you goggled Global Currency Reset, or Global Collateral Accounts, or the Republic of the United States of America, you would see tonnes of articles on them. But none is from the mainstream sources - the Federal Reserve, any central bank, or any university. To him, the lack of such credentials simply goes to prove that his contentions are right. These people are trying to hide the truth from us!!! 

This friend of mine placed this wager with me three months ago. I would have to buy friends an MYR500 dinner if by 15 March 2016 one of these events took place: Global Currency Reset or Obama leaving the White House. If none of this happened, he would pay for the dinner instead. On 16 March, I wrote to him, not to claim the prize, but to try to shake him out of his dreams. And he literally replied to say that he had NOT lost. The Global Currency Reset was already in place and asked me to expect Obama’s resignation in a matter of days!

How can he believe in such nonsense? Mind boggling indeed!

This same friend of mine came years ago to tell me that he had been entrusted by a powerful party to cash out his USD97 billion bonds. Yes, USD97,000,000,000! He showed me the certificates. I had never seen one before, but the quality of the paper and the wording in the certificates certainly looked impressive. He said he would be rewarded with a percentage, which would run into hundreds of millions. I really didn’t understand what he was supposed to do to deserve this reward.

But I asked him, "Who are you to them for them to want to give you these many millions?" He never gave me an answer, but I supposed in him he must be saying this, “Let’s me show you!”

I don’t believe he has collected a single cent, let alone millions. But after squandering all his nest egg on this rainbow, until today he still believes that he failed because he couldn't come up with the last "bit" to make it work! 

My Indonesia-born son-in-law who runs a law firm in Melbourne told me that he was recently approached by a compatriot client to help authenticate billions worth of bond certificates that he had been entrusted to handle. I suppose this case is the same as my friend's. This is already twenty years later, yet the same myth still persists! (The client walked away disappointed, thinking that my son-in-law's incredulity was misplaced!)

There appears to be a common trait between this client of my son-in-law and my aforesaid friend. According to my son-in-law, this client is no bodoh stuff; apparently he is pretty outstanding academically. And he really believes in conspiracy theories!!! 

I can now perhaps put up this hypothesis: Inclination to believe in conspiracy theories is directly proportional to one’s IQ?

Is Global Currency Reset for real? For those who are interested, I suggest you read this book by Marcus Curtis. The Kindle edition cost only a couple of dollars.