Smart or insidious?

When I mooted the idea of being a freelance actuarial consultant few years back, one of the first few questions posed by my ex-boss and his colleague was what sort of company I would establish.

Frankly, at that time, I didn't think that far. I thought I could help a few projects here and there to get additional income. I was like, "Huh? Need to set up company? That serious?". However, they knew what they were talking about especially since one of them did set up a small company. In addition, last year, the same question was asked by an actuary in KL when he asked me whether I was interested in helping him with some projects should the need arise.

With the current project from Singapore undergone and hopefully finishing soon, I thought I should register my 'business' as a sole proprietorship. This will likely make life easier for payment to be made to me later. I had researched this for the past couple of years and from there I started the process.

I knew one straightforward way was to go any office of Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM). The process, as I later discovered, was supposed to be quick i.e. under an hour. The nearest office to me, at the moment, should be at KL Sentral @_@

At the start, I had already set my mind on doing this online ever since I discovered that it could be done via SSM's E-Lodgement Services. It cost an extra RM5 compared to going to the office. Totally worth it compared to driving to the office etc, or so I thought then.

My first problem was doing the first step: registering as a user of 'myPortal' on Malaysia government's official portal.  Here's a picture of its online form:

Malaysia myPortal

After I filled it up with the required information and checked the box at the bottom left (confirming my understanding of the terms and conditions etc), I clicked on the "Next" button on the bottom right. Nothing happened.

If all had gone well, I was supposed to receive an e-mail telling me I had registered and asking me to click a link to confirm registration. From this and the "Next" button, I surmised that there had to be at least one more page after the above page to fill in where they would ask for my e-mail address. As shown above, this was not asked for in the first page.

I tried using 3 different browsers and two different laptops. Again, nothing happened. Just when I thought I had to make the trip to an SSM office, I gave my feedback to myGovernment about the broken online registration form. Among information required in the feedback form was my e-mail address.

I decided to try the registration on more time but this time, it told me that the IC no. had already been used. Whaaaattt? I checked my e-mail. Still no confirmation e-mail. On a hunch, I went to the log-in page of myPortal and clicked "Reset" to reset password. Lo behold I received an e-mail!

How did they get my e-mail without me providing it in the registration form? Did they somehow get it from the feedback form by matching my name? Are they that smart...or they had my e-mail all along in the government database???



Comments

JokerPJ said…
So did you manage to register your company at the end?

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