Malaysians Are Masters of Prank Calls

A recent survey found out that 82% of the calls made to Talian Nur Hotline (Talian Nur) were prank calls.

The finding was revealed by the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development Minister, Datuk Dr. Ng Yen Yen.

Surprisingly enough, a further look discovered that majority of such calls were made by children. The number of prank calls increased during the weekends and escalated to higher level during the school holidays.

Lack of guidance, education and monitoring were cited as the possible reasons of the children’s behaviour.

The Talian Nur Hotline was launched in late 2007 to as a mean to render assistance to public who are subject to social injustice such as abuse, welfare negligence, domestic violence and mental disturbance. It operates on 24-hour basis, where users can get in touch with experienced hotline personnel by dialing 15999.

The Talian Nur Hotline recently received a commendable review, after a reporter from The Star Newspaper, who made a ‘dummy’ call to assess the quality of the service by the operator discovered that the advice rendered by the officer on the receiving was apparently helpful. It concluded that the hotline was not merely a lip service and that the person attending calls from the public was competent and responsive. Later, a story, Talian Nur Hotline Well Managed, was published in the newspaper on 22 July 2008, which started to attract more and more callers.

Prank calls have been a major distress for many of the public service departments in Malaysia. Apart from Talian Nur, the emergency hotline service, 999 has also been blatantly violated with irresponsible citizens taking advantage of the free telephony service meant for alerting the authority on emergency. In 2007 alone, more than 90% calls made to the 999 number were eventually identified as prank calls.

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Author's bio: Zul is the founder and principal contributor for the SKOR Career blog. He is the author of two books, The Malaysian Job Seeker's Dilemma and Buat Duit Tanpa Kerja Makan Gaji (How to Make Money Without a Job), available in major book stores nationwide. You can reach him at zulkiflimusa[at]gmail.com.