Taxi Scams in Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia

It's not a surprise for citizens in Kuala Lumpur who took taxis for quite some times to see that news anymore..

There's lotsa lotsa taxi drivers who did scamming work in Kuala Lumpur or even uptown and downtown.. They are well-known for their rudeness when dealing with the customers.. I didn't see any changes even if there's a helpline there.. Shouldn't the government or whoever it is do something about this?!

Now things gotten big! Yesterday, while I was checking my mail, I saw this big news in MSN.com.. Click here to read the whole news..

Here's the small part of the news:

In a survey by the local magazine The Expat, some 200 foreigners from 30 countries rated Malaysia the worst among 23 countries in terms of taxi quality, courtesy, availability and expertise.

The respondents lashed the fleet as "a source of national shame" and "a serious threat to tourists -- rude bullies and extortionists".

Seriously, they really had spoiled the reputation of the country!! *sigh* What on earth are they thinking?!

I'm pretty sure you hear this before from the taxi drivers:
* Flat rate, Flat rate, no more metre
* Sekarang Traffic Jam la.. Charge more..
* Traffic Jam.. No go there..
* That area very jam.. We no run metre there..
* No metre la.. You try other taxi drivers see they use or not?!

In fact, our destination ain't that far la.. Even if it jam, SO WHAT?! As if when it jam the metre is not running and not increasing like that..

However, I was really surprise to meet one lady taxi driver.. She really gave us a warm welcome while we onboard from IOI Mall, Puchong to Sunway Pyramid, Sunway.. Apart from that, she told us that all this while she had been using metre and never request for flat rate regardless how jam it is.. "It's a principal", she added. I wonder how many taxi drivers can learn from her and practice the ethics and principal that she did. I really wish to onboard on her taxi again the next time I'm going to take taxi.. Her good attitude towards customer is enough to attract more customers.. Not forgetting to mention how careful she drove and how tidy her car is..

Imagine yourself going into a taxi which STINKS! and having a RECKLESS DRIVER! Oh my god!! Why you have to suffer when you pay such a high price for that (ya.. ya.. FLAT RATE..) and they cut the queue here and there as if there's no more tomorrow..

Feeling nothing about it?! How about taking a Taxi which will ended up like this?!

Picture source taken from Pog Mahone

*Sigh* Another sad incident happened to my girlfriend while she drove my car.. A taxi driver knocked my car and ran away! Even though it didn't leave a big scratch and a bit tainted, he shouldn't had ran away.. I wasn't with my girlfriend that time and she got panicked a bit when the driver knocked her..

When she looked at the taxi driver, the taxi driver waved and asked her to move ahead.. My girlfriend considered about it and move ahead a bit as it's a junction and the road is freaking small and the car queue behind was freaking long.. (Blame those who approve to build such a small road).. Anyway, after my girlfriend moved ahead a bit, the taxi driver FAST FAST RUN ROAD! What the hell?! Too bad my girlfriend could not see the car plate, else, I complain KAO KAO!

Haihz.. CAN ANY AUTHORITY-IN-CHARGE LOOK AT THIS MATTER?!

P/s: Long post.. but based on true events.. Print out the news and show to the taxi drivers next time when they ask for FLAT RATE! Macam-lah they are DIGI.. APA FLAT RATE.. -.-"

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Way to Claim for Petrol

From today (Saturday, June 14), vehicle and motorcycle owners eligible for cash rebates can claim them at 683 post offices nationwide.

You have until March next year (under the first phase) to claim your rebates.

With the recently-announced fuel price hike, the government is offering owners of cars of up to 2,000cc, as well as pick-up trucks and jeeps of up to 2,500cc RM625 for each vehicle, while motorcyclists with vehicles of up to 250cc will receive RM150 each.

Here's what you have to do:

* bring along your original identity card or MyKad or police/army identity card.

* you will need to fill in details like their full name, identity card number and vehicle registration number on the prescribed form available at the post offices.

* those who have more than one vehicle have to fill a separate form for each vehicle, for up to five vehicles (cars or combination of cars and motorcycles).

* during the Phase I period, third parties are not allowed to make the claims on behalf of vehicle owners.

* Pos Malaysia staff will make verifications with the Road Transport Department's (JPJ) database to determine the eligibility for the cash rebate.

* under Phase I, vehicle owners whose road tax are between April 1 and May 31 this year could start claiming the subsidy from June 14 to March 31 next year.

* vehicle owners who purchased or renewed their road tax between June 1 this year and March 31, 2009, could make their claims from July 1 this year (under Phase II).

* transactions can also be made via money order, following the same procedure but claimants must include their permanent or postal address and telephone contact number in the forms before dropping
the forms in the boxes provided at the post offices. The maximum waiting period is seven days and the vehicle owners can cash the money order at any nearest post office or make deposits in their bank account.

Some 2,000 counter staff members will be involved in the exercise.

(source: Bernama quoting Pos Malaysia Berhad acting managing director Datuk Abu Huraira Abu Yazid.)

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Tips: SAVE MORE Petrol!!!

Our government always compared our petrol price with non oil-producing countries such as Singapore and Thailand, however, did you realise that they never really compare our petrol price with oil-producing countries like Malaysia?!

Check this out:

UAE - RM1.19/litre
Eygpt - RM1.03/litre
Bahrain - RM0.87/litre
Qatar - RM0.68/litre
Kuwait - RM0.67/litre
Saudi Arabia - RM0.38/litre
Iran - RM0.35/litre
Brunei - RM1.10/litre
Nigeria - RM0.32/litre
Turkmenistan - RM0.25/litre
Venezuela - RM0.16/litre

MALAYSIA - RM2.70/litre

Anyway, I'm not going to complain much about the petrol because a lot of bloggers had done that already due to the recent increment of petrol price to RM2.70..

Instead, I would like you to read all this from a forwarded mail.. It's useful as it's logically true and scientifically proven..

Only buy or fill up your vehicle petrol in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground.. The colder the ground the more dense the fuel, when it gets warmer petrol expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your litre is not exactly a litre. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the petrol, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.  A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapours that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapour return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes  vapour. Those vapours are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your tank is HALF FULL.  The reason for this is, the more fuel you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Petrol evaporates faster than you can imagine. Petroleum storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the petrol and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.

Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every litre is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a fuel truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy, DO NOT fill up--most likely the petrol/diesel is being stirred up as the fuel is being delivered,  and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

Hope this will help you get the most value for your money.

DO SHARE THESE TIPS WITH OTHERS!

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iTalentStar

Whee.. A lot of things had happened lately.. I was a bit troubled in managing my time.. I had to study, focus at iTalentStar, shopping, and hanging out with my friends..

Well, There’s a lot to talk about since my last blogging time about me but most importantly, I would like to talk about my life as an iTalent (contestant of iTalentStar)..

This iTalentStar is the first talent competition that I’ve joined. It’s something very different from what we see from some other reality TV programme such as American Idol, One in a million or even So you think you can dance.

We do our activities and everything via the internet. That is what makes this talent competition special because it’s the first online-based talent competition organized by iHub in collaboration with Friendster.

Some of you might have notice that I’d been posting out some Shout out in my friendster profile or even changing my nick in MSN to something which is related to iTalentStar..

Basically, how it works is to ask the voters to vote for us and of course, we have to impress the i-Judges and media to vote for us too by looking at our videos, pictures, and our blog.

Well, my bad for not keeping what I’d blogged about the experiences that I had gone through throughout the competition.

It wasn’t as easy as it may have seen. All those video taken took a bit time to shoot and to rehearse. Besides, this is the first time that I really shoot a video of myself and post it to YouTube.

After all the hard works and struggle, I am finally the Country Champion (winner of the semi-finals of each country). Well, did I mention how hard the competition is going to be for the final round?! I have to compete with 3 other male contestants from Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia. Of course, together with Sin Hui Jing (the female country champion for Malaysia) we have to make Malaysia proud!

Well, I guess it must be tiring to read from the beginning of the story till the end. If you read until here, I would like to thank you all personally for supporting me all this while and read my blog continuously even though I seldom update my blog.

Thanks again.. To know more about iTalentStar, check it out at http://www.italentstar.com/

And do check out my videos and everything at my official fans profile @ www.friendster.com/italentmym05 .

Cheers,
Harry

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Api! Api!!

Well, curious what's about it?

7th July, Kuching:
As I was working as the Digi Celebriteen crew for the audition that day, I'd encountered an exciting encounter that I had ever made. We (Digi celebriteen crew) were too bored. Not many went for the audition that day, all we'd done was wait, wait and wait.. I were thinking that the reason might be that Cosmopoint college was too "hidden" as in it's location.. People were lazy to go to Cosmopoint to do the audition because they didn't want to waste their precious time in looking for the spot..

Well, since we were bored, me and two of my colleagues went "yum cha" and we saw smoke coming out from place that wasn't far away from the cafe. The wind was too furious that time and blew the smoke to our direction.

I guess it happened that we got nothing to do and we went to see what happen. I felt like we were the "Digi Celebriteen Reporter" as we were in one car and wearing the same uniform to the burning spot.

When we reached place that was nearby to the incident, we parked our car and ran to that spot. On the way running to that burning spot, I saw long traffic jam and many peoples which was as busybody as we do. While reaching to the place of occurrence, we saw fire brigades there splashing water on the angry fire on the first floor of the building. I had to admit that the fire brigade was cool.




Many went to take photo like we did and many stood there to see the "show" while some were discussing about the incidence and make conclusion to it just like we did. We were suspecting that the company had owed some firm money so instead they burned all the documents and on top of that they can claim fire insurance as well.. No new car were burned at all.. It's like planned properly..





The funniest part was when we saw the officer of the fire brigade arrive after the fire brigades had long arrived and they only stepped in and took a look just like what we did..



Well, I guess this is how Malaysian is... After shooting some photos, we rushed back for the audition and waited for people who wanted to had their celebrity dream..

Still, in the end, nobody went for it and we packed and ran home to rest..

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Internet Lagged Due To The Taiwan Earthquake

Below are the news taken from tmnet. This explain why we couldn't reach some of the websites.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006: The Internet service is currently experiencing a degradation in performance caused by several outages at some of the international links. This is attributed to the Richter 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck off the southern coast of Taiwan at 12.07 a.m. on 27th December 2006, which caused the APCN2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network 2) submarine cable fault between Shantou, China and Tanshui, Taiwan and between Lantau, Hong Kong and Chongming, China.

This has caused outages at several TM Net international transit and peering links, mainly to the said countries. As a result, Internet users in Malaysia and other parts of Asia may be experiencing some delay when assessing content and websites hosted outside of Malaysia, especially in U.S., Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea and Europe. TM Net has taken immediate action to divert traffic through other back-up links to reduce the traffic congestion.

The international providers are carrying out immediate restoration works to rectify the problem.

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