My Wallet, Qatar & me....

I wish I could never experience this moment in my life again... 

At 1st I thought I misplaced my wallet in the house. I took it easy.. It was just me. Took things for granted. Something that my wife always nag about.. hehe.

I could not find it anywhere in the house. Occasionally, I left the wallet in the car. I tried to look for it in the car.. Nothing!! Then the panic started to kick in... Obviously I did not show it to my wife when I told her that I could not find my wallet. I just asked her if she saw it.. She started to drill me with all sort of questions. At that point I felt I was her patient... She asked as if she was taking the history of her patient.. Still I remained cool... At least I like to think I sounded cool to her...

Prior to that... That morning I drove around without any ID with me. No driving licence, no Qatar ID.. Luckily I had some cash with me.. hehe. Another habit of mine.. Keep money everywhere except in the wallet... In this occasion, it was proven that the habit helped. Otherwise I would go penniless..

When I still could not find the wallet. I realised something was not right. If we could not locate it in the house and in the car, it might be somewhere else.. The question was.. WHERE????

From my wife's interrogation, we concluded that I might have dropped or lost it when we were having dinner at Pendarosa with Asings & Kharul.. Scary thought!!!

At that point, I asked my wife if she ever received SMS from QNB for the usage of my credit card on that day... Over here in Qatar, the moment you charge your purchase to your card, you will be notified through SMS of your spending almost immediately.. Extremely super efficient SMS banking system we have in Qatar. My wife's mobile number was the official number the bank had for notification through SMS. The fact that no SMS came through to her was a big relief. It just meant that my wallet was out there and nobody used the ATM and credit cards for spending spree...

We decided to go back to Pendarosa to try our luck... I was a bit embarrass to ask the Manager On Duty. Certainly I did not want to look stupid (غبي)... To my surprise, the Manager On Duty admitted that his staff found one wallet under the table a night before. He did some simple check to confirm my identity.. I could not believe that I got my wallet back!!! I thanked Pendarosa staff for being honest.. Keep it up..

I was such a big relief to get my wallet back with EVERYTHING intact. Not a single Riyal missing from my wallet.. I told the Manager that if I were to lose my wallet in Malaysia, I would never see it again.. But here in Qatar, things are different. Hopefully it stays that way.... That also reminded me of Ali who always left his Lexus with engine running whenever he went into shops to buy something. I always told him that if he did that in Malaysia, he would never see his car again.. EVER..

Ironically... During the dinner that night, Asings talked about how he lost some money in Malaysia to email scam or better known as Phishing Scam. I was jokingly said that he needed to pay Zakat to 'clean' his money.. It must be very painful for him to lose the hard earned money to unscrupulous guy.... Here I was joking about it.. I sometime could be so insensitive...

For me, I considered myself lucky to have my wallet back, Alhamdulillah. I better be extra careful next time... I may not be that lucky next time..

For those who are still unaware of the phishing scam, be careful and don't fall into the trap... I copy this message from Maybank2U website..

Police alert!
 
NEVER respond to any phone call / SMS / email requesting your bank account details

NEVER reveal your bank account details / ATM PIN / Internet banking password to anyone

NEVER follow instructions from unknown parties to do banking transactions or make changes to your bank account details

NEVER be a victim of schemes that sound too good to be true