My cousin’s husband just related a horrible story to me about how he was conned of his handphone through an elaborate scam just last week.

Eric received a call at his office from a potential client who’d asked him to meet up at One Utama Chilli’s. The man had asked him to bring his notebook to present to his CEO (Eric’s in the plastics business and is a Taiwanese).

Upon reaching Chilli’s, Eric met the man and they discussed business for a while.Five minutes later, the guy asked Eric to call his CEO to ask when he will be reaching, which my cousin-in-law did. It was all very natural.

The ‘CEO’ said he would be there shortly, and had asked to speak with the guy Eric met. As is a natural practice, the man took the call outside because it was a little noisy in Chilli’s.

That was the last Eric saw of the man, or his Nokia phone.

The guy had left his pouch there. Guess what was inside?

A huge stack of old brochures and a rock.

According to my hubby, this isn’t the first time this happened to someone we know. My husband’s colleague also kena-ed a similar thing recently.

She’d met someone online and they arranged for a date. He borrowed her phone to make a call, again walking out of the restaurant, and never returned. What is the world coming to? These guys are real social engineers, predicting that one can’t exactly refuse to lend a potential client, or boyfriend, a phone. How would it look?”Uh, sorry, I don’t lend my phone to strangers.

“We’re talking perhaps tens of thousands of dollars worth of business here and you can’t lend me a lousy thousand dollar phone?

I could be the love of your life and you won’t let me make one call?

One wonders, why this elaborate scam to steal a phone? How much could it be worth outside?

Perhaps this is an indication that even the thieves are getting smart. Much smarter.

Not good for the rapidly rising levels of public apathy.

So the next time some stranger, even if it’s a business associate, wants to borrow your phone, perhaps it would be wise to say “Sure, but can you please use it inside here? There’s a phone scam going on.”

Makes for a good warning system, or conversation piece, if nothing else.