I got Conned !!

This took place in my university. I guess about 2 months back.

I wanted to rent a car to go to a party. So I contacted a guy with the nickname SourPlum (He has a car for rent, I don’t know his real name). Later I went to his room to get the car keys. His room was a little messy, clothes lying on the floor, his bed was in a mess… I cant judge him though … mine isn’t clean either =)

Then when I turned to my right I saw his bookshelf. What I saw surprised me… there it was – a stack of Readers Digest magazines. I could see that a few of them were from the 1980’s and two or three of the 70’s. So I asked him
“are you collecting these”,
“not really jus read them through, I’m thinking of selling them off”
And I was really interested in buying it. I have been collecting Reader’s Digest magazines for two years now and I thought this would really be nice to add into my collection. So I told him that I’m willing to buy it, we agreed to a price of RM20, so I promised pay him and take the magazines immediately after I receive my scholarship money. He agreed, so I took the car keys and left the room. For that one week I was eagerly waiting for the money (Quite sincerely, in the past I have never been this eager to receive my scholarship money).

Finally the money arrived, I made a withdrawal, and met him. When paying for the book he asked “So it’s RM 50 right?” I was surprised and replied “No. we agreed on RM 20 that day, am I right?” but he kept saying that it was for RM 50, and I kept denying it. But finally he agreed for RM 20, I paid, thanked him and left.

I remember it was raining slightly and it was late in the evenings, the sky was bluish and dark. Pride was running high in me, “I made a good deal today” so I thought.
Before going back to my room I went to Ravin’s (a friend) room first. He questioned about the magazines and I told him about how I came to find them and also how I made a ‘good bargain’ on them. He took a few magazines from me and went through them. Then he smiled, showed me one of the magazines and said “Sorry to tell you, but you’ve been conned”, on the magazine was a price tag written : “Novel Hut RM 0.50”. I was surprised to know that the man only bought them for 50 cents from a second hand book dealer, I really felt embarrassed in front of Ravin but we just laughed over it. After chatting some time with him, I left for my room.

While walking to my room a lot of thoughts raced through my mind, “I should’ve checked the magazines before buying them”, “Maybe I shouldn’t have been that hasty in buying them” so on and so forth. When I reached my room, immediately I began counting them, there were 30, each cost 50 cent, so in total they only cost RM 15 and I paid RM 20 !!

Frankly, being conned of RM 5 was an embarrassing experience for me. I never expected the man to overcharge me for the magazines. A couple of months have passed since.
But when I read them, all those inspiring stories of struggle and survival, of tragedies and dramas. I finally realize that being conned of RM 5 was worth the embarrassment. And I’m writing this to remind others and also myself that there’s nothing worth gaining if you don’t lose something first.

Day 1

Day 1 of blogging

its obviously the 1st time im blogging not much experience in this field

hopefully ill learn something along the way

=)

smile alwayz