The definition of scam is an illegal plan for making money, especially one that involves tricking people when people got scammed, they felt dumb because the doer used a smart trick to convinced victims to spent their money. For example, the doer tells victims to donate their money to an organization to help earthquake’s victims, but the doer uses the victims money for their own good. Even dating and romance can be used as a scam. “Dating scam” usually takes place in an online dating platform. Dating and romance scammers use a fictional name and will go to great lengths to gain your interest and trust, such as showering you with loving words Once they gained your personal information and trust, they pretend that that really need money for some sort of personal emergency and they will ask the money form victims. Thank god I haven’t got scammed, but all of you should watch out because these scammers get smarter as the time goes by.
On Friday, you told us that this post is made after a scam issue occurred in the campus area of UGM. Well, I am one of those people who actually got approached / contacted by the suspected scammer. I was sitting at one of the round table near the selasar alone since I was expecting a video call from someone. I saw a lady was walking towards me and asking permission if she could present something to me for 2 minutes only. And of course, I said yes. Moreover, the lady’s quite pretty. Anyway, she sat down facing me and said that she’s from the Indonesia Lupus Foundation selling villa and restaurant vouchers for charity. The vouchers were offered for Rp.100.000 each. I did not bring any money and didn’t have any intention to help at that time, but I am a typical Indonesian who’s reluctant to say no, so I said that I’ll think about that. She asked me my whatsapp number and I gave her. I don’t know why I gave her my number. 2 hours after, she called me and texted me through WhatsApp. I did not reply after I saw a broadcasted message at a group chat about this ‘scam’.
This is kind off interesting but I did actually experienced the exact same thing as what happened to Aziz Akbar. Basically i was just chilling in my car waiting for the class, then suddenly there is this woman approaching my car. At first, i thought it was one my friend because they kinda look similar, but then she started knocking the window of my car and asked me to get out of the car so that we could talk more comfortably. I was like “what the hell is going on”, then i refused to do it and i opened the window instead. As Aziz said, she claimed that she’s from the Indonesia Lupus Foundation and were about to sell a villa and restaurant vouchers for charity, and its about Rp.100.000. She explain a LOT of thing about this charity until it reached a point where i’d feel guilty if i reject her offer. Besides she looked quiet well dressed and attractive and seemed to be promising. Therefore,without any hesitation i gave her the Rp.100.000 and after i read Aziz akbar’s comment, i just realized that it was a scam.
I experienced the exact same thing too. When I arrived in Jogja, I visit some furniture stores to fill up the room that I’ll be using for the next few years. I actually went with my mother but then we went separately to get things that we want for our own. As I was walking and looking around, I was approached by a man, that I somehow believed, has been watching me. I think one of the reasons he approached me is that because I was alone. That makes me an easy target to whatever his aim was. He offered me to handshake very kindly. He told me he was from the Indonesia Lupus Foundation, just like what was told to Aziz and Daffa. He showed me what lupus is like and he told me more about it too. He then offered a book consisting of vouchers that cost for Rp. 100.000 each. Honestly, I was already getting a weird vibe ever since I felt like I was being watched and ever since I realise he was walking towards me. I was very unsure of the offer, even the handshake felt strange. As he explained more about his aim of approaching, I think I showed some kind of attitude that does not make this man comfortable. He then told me if I was disturbed, so I told him that I was in a rush. He ended up apologizing and leave. As for Aziz’s case, I can’t imagine that they actually put such effort for such scam by still contacting through whatsapp. The motif and the real organisation that’s behind all of this is really still a huge mystery for me.
There is a huge exploitation happening in Yogyakarta about parking fees. I wouldn't call it a scam, but as Dava stated "Scam is an illegal plan for making money". Now i'm not saying it is illegal to have parking fee's and the people asking for them have done no crime whatsoever, if they followed the law that has been established. According to the Local Regulation Number 4 2016 and Number 5 2017 of Yogyakarta it is stated that "the parking fee for motorcycles are Rp. 1000 and for cars it is Rp. 2000". However, as we can see in our daily activities we are usually charged Rp. 2000 when we are parking with MOTORCYCLES. What do you think? Does this count as a scam? Personally I don't really mind that I pay Rp. 2000 for parking fees, however it might bother somebody else because it does not follow regulations which means that it is an illegal transaction.
I just realized my spelling error "fee's" on the third line. also the word "are" in line 6 should be "is" because it is about the parking fee which is singular.
Tribun Jogja (May 27, 2018) "Lebaran, Tarif Parkir Motor Tetap Rp. 1000 dan Mobil Rp. 2000". Retrieved from http://jogja.tribunnews.com/2018/05/27/lebaran-tarif-parkir-motor-tetap-rp-1000-dan-mobil-rp-2000 Date of Access September 2, 2018
Scam or fraud is something that has long been a problem in Indonesia. And with the emergence of online shop sites such as Tokopedia and Bukalapak which provide the chance for people to sell their products, it is likely that scam issues will continue to be a problem. Why? The problem with online shopping is that, the buyers don’t really have the real information about the product that the sellers sell to them. For instance, there are some sellers that sell imitative clothes and shoes of a well-known brands like Nike, Adidas, Balenciaga, and many more. But the sellers would usually say that it is an authentic product, regardless of the price they charge for the products they sell which is often just a fraction of the original one. Another case is when international tourists are given higher price for taxis, drivers, and street foods, just like what the tourist has said in the video. This often happens at tourist spots in Bali, Yogyakarta, and even Jakarta. So, in my opinion, government should move and make regulations that would fix these issues. Because scam issues might defame Indonesia in the eye of people across the world.
Scam is an illegal plan to take your money by promoting something that is non existant or something that is not as good as the truth, it involves tricking people into spending their money. Speaking of scam, I have been scammed twice whilst I was spending my holiday in bali. First is that when I was renting a surfboard on the kuta beach, and the second was while I was eating at the Jimbaran beach. The surfboard rental gave me a surfboard wih a broken fin, and when I know that It was broken, they accused me of breaking it. Since I was just 15 years old at that time, they told me if I didn’t paid for the damage, they would not let me go back to the hotel until I paid for the damage. I was so scared at that moment because I didn’t brought any money with me. The second time I got scammed in Bali was at the Jimbaran beach. I didn’t know whether this can be categorized as a scam or is it just my family negligence. At that time when we ordered the food, we didn’t ask about how much will it cost for a 5 person to eat, and when the bill came, the food costed us three million rupiahs. We were so shocked at that time because we were not expecting the bill to be that high. The moral story is, as a tourist you should be careful and look twice before you purchased or ordered something, because in some tourist area, the locals might see you as a target and therefore scamming you to get the money out of your pocket.
Scams often happen in many ways, in Indonesia. Thus, I always think that scams is a normal thing until one moment, I feel it my self. I was tricked by an online shop on ‘instagram’. About a year ago, I ordered souvenirs for my friends in the event of my birthday, on a certain online shop. They asked me to transfer the money first, then they will make the souvenirs, so I did transfer it to them. Days by days, there are no further information about my orders, they did not reply my chats, worse, they did not even read them. Firstly, I think that they are too busy too reply my chats, I try to keep a positive mind before judging them. Unfortunately, it has been 3 weeks, and yet I still haven’t got news from the online shop. I tried to call them, sending them chats as much as I could, there was still no answer. It seems that they blocked me at that moment. Then I realize, that I was scammed by an online shop, which actually, they had many followers and looked very trusted. I really don’t mind about the amount of money, but I am wondering why they do such things, instead of maintaining their reputation as a good online shop.
Tourist scam is the most often activity one finds while traveling. Whether it’s traveling abroad to other country or traveling around our own country, many people will often meet scammers throughout their journey. These scammers are also equipped with tools and tricks that surely will manipulate the target into giving out their money for these scammers. Here in Indonesia, it’s not a rare thing for many tourists to be scammed by the local people, especially in Bali. To be honest, I too almost got scammed in Bali. It was during the holiday where my friends and I went to Bali to do a volunteer work in one of the schools located in Ubud. Before my friends and I begin our volunteer work, we decided to visit the Ubud Art Market and buy one of those Bintang tank top. When we got there the seller offered us Rp 100,000 for just a single tank top, which is absurd. Of course, my friend and I didn’t want to buy a tank top shirt that cost 100,000 Rupiah, so we decided to bargain. In the end, after bargaining for so long, my friends and I managed to buy the shirt for Rp 20,000 each. Although it was still too expensive for that low-quality tank top, it was still a great gain for us since we didn’t spend Rp100,000 on just a tank top shirt. My tip on buying some souvenirs or shirt on that market is to bargain like a madman because the price they offered is "tourist price", which is why the things they sell there are very expensive.
Scam in my opinion is a way or a method to earn money by tricking the buyers. So based on that definiton of mine, yes scam is an illegal thing to do right?. But still people do it all the time especially in Indonesia. Most of the victims were tourists but it does not rule out the possibility of local getting scammed too. Why does this happen? because many people couldn't get the chance as the rich people has and yes it is because of destiny too, but we are not going to talk about that, it is because of the economic state of the country itself. If a country has a good economy that means most of the people got jobs and earn a decent money for a living resulting in less scam. But yes morality is the issue too, Indonesian probably already know the moral of Indonesian mostly have and some of it have really bad morality. So i think we cannot blame those people who scammed them, they do it because maybe they really had to we don't know right?. What i think we must do as an FEB UGM student is fixing the morality of this country and last but not least the economy of this country. -Dimas Aditya Permana
Scam in Indonesia, especially in the side of tourism is still actively going on. These scams mostly happened towards foreigner or here we call it as 'bule'. As the information given in the video, she stated that the scams were done in Bali. Yes, Bali, we all know that Bali is one of the most attractive site in Indonesia to be visited. Since 2000, on average, there have been five million foreign tourists each year. By the information, we can easily know why scams are oftenly occurred in Bali. Scamming does occur because of firstly the needs of sellers to fulfill their daily needs and also secondly because they look onto the side of tourism that also could support the first reason why it occurred. Scamming in the side of tourism is mainly come from the acknowledgment of the workers that foreigners have higher income and also knowing that their country's currency strength is stronger and higher than the Indonesian Rupiah. For this case, it could be the effect of our country's economy condition to be one of the causes.
I, Myself, also have been scammed. I was scammed not in Bali, but in Yogyakarta. In this case, I can consider myself negligent because I wasn't being assertive in the accident. The accident was happened in the airport between me and a taxi driver. So that time, I was so tired that I just landed from Jakarta. I ordered Go-Car to get back to my boarding house but then the application told me that I have to walk about 1 KM to reach the place because Go-Cars weren't allowed to pick up passengers. Because of that, I reach a taxi driver. I asked him that I'm going to 'Pandega Marta' and I asked him how much is the cost because I am inexperienced going from the airport to my boarding house. He replied to me that to reach the destination is so far and it could cost me Rp.80.000. Because of my phone's dead and my body is really fatigue, I immediately say ‘okay let's go’ and slept almost the whole trip. After reaching the boarding house, I noticed that he didn't use any meters but at the moment I put my trust in him. In my room, after charging my phone and look at how much on average I should pay, I knew that I got scammed. I should've only paid Rp 35.000. From my experience, I knew that scamming could be anywhere and anytime. We should be ready for it, not being ready to be scammed but ready to fight it. We have to be aware at times Indonesians talk about money, because it could lead to scam. Indonesia is a paradise, but its law enforcements are the opposite.
On 21 January 2018, a phenomenal rookie K-Pop group, Wanna One, had a fan meeting in Jakarta. Me and my friend actually wanted to attend that event. Since there are early bird tickets and it’s sold only for the promotor’s members, I looked for someone with a membership and willing to buy the tickets for us. They agreed to sell it with extra cost so me and my friend agreed to it. A few weeks before the event, I asked them about the tickets and they ignored me. Even after the fan meeting finished, they still didn’t respond to my texts. From the name of the bank account’s owner, we searched for their social media and able to be in contact with them. After my mom investigate the situation, we found out that the bank account used by the scammer is not theirs. Apparently, they use someone else’s who attended an earlier concert with them. When my mom asked the bank, it looks like the bank account the scammer used is empty and we weren’t able to retrieve the money. We couldn’t contact the real scammer, too. Luckily, me and my friend decided to buy the cheapest tickets so we just gave up and lost about two million rupiahs.
Scamming is ridiculously common here in Indonesia because it happens on a daily basis. Sadly, I was once scammed during sophomore year of High School. What happened was I got an assignment where I had to make a business plan with my friends, we then had to generate the product and sell it. We decided that we were going to sell t-shirts and caps with our own custom made designs. We proceeded by contacting a local custom t-shirt maker. We decided that we wanted to make 10 t-shirts and 10 caps since we were still in a process of observing the market. We have already paid the whole transaction because they told us that we have to pay it fully before they start processing the products. We ended up doing what the owners told us to do and they said that our orders will be done in a week. A week later we went there and half of the batch of our t-shirts were done so we took them and they said that the rest of our orders will be done in a couple of days. Couple of days later, we went to get the rest of our remaining orders but when we got there, turns out that our remaining orders weren’t done yet so they told us to come back in 2 days. 2 days later, the orders were still not finished. This kept repeating for a whole month. We kept going back and forth thinking that our products will be done by the time we got there until we just gave up a week before the assignment was due. The owner didn’t take us seriously and he kept saying that it will be ready next week or in a couple of days but until today, we never end up receiving our remaining orders.
Scam is a crime that happens quite often in Indonesia. This is because lots of people here still live below the poverty line. There are many cases related to scam in Indonesia. Scam comes in many different types such as; stealing identities to commit fraudulent actions like using the victim's credit card, impersonating charities and ask for donations claiming to collect money after natural disasters, tricking job-seekers by offering an 'easy’ way to get high-paying job with little effort, taking advantage of the people who are looking for romantic partners via dating websites, apps or social media by pretending to be prospective companion and then asking the victim to provide money, gifts or personal details, etc. The vast number of scam is driven by the development of technology. The victims also varies from underage to adults, from locals to tourists. I am lucky I've never been in a situation that correlates with scam. And by knowing these facts, I hope I can always be aware of my surroundings and be alert at all times.
We as Indonesian citizen probably couldn’t really relate on what the woman were saying, those things mostly happened to tourist or foreigners. But those kind of stuff actually happened. I was and exchange student so me and my fellow Indonesian exchange student often take the exchange student from another country to go on a trip or something. We usually go to Malioboro, Tamansari, etc. It is common that street vendors would charge foreigners for more money, so me and my friends would buy it for them. In Indonesia, scam has been a never ending problem. We probably know about message scam, call scam, and so much more. When I was in junior high school, I suddenly got called by the school and they told me that my parents got scammed. Afterwards, my parents told me that they got called by someone telling them that their son (which is me) got into an accident at school and had to be taken to hospital. They told my parents to pay the hospital fees and they did. I personally think that this problem would keep happening and neither government nor the police could handle all of the mess. We should learn from experience, be smart, be careful and protect our self from those scams.
Scamming is a very annoying thing that has been happening in Indonesia. Personally, I have never been scammed in Indonesia before as far as I can remember. Though, I have heard many stories regarding the scamming activities in Indonesia from some of my acquaintances. Just like many others said in the comment, scammers in Indonesia usually target the tourists that know little about Indonesia. The most common scam event is usually the one where people manipulate the price of a transportation. This is one of the easiest methods because tourists do not really know how far their destination is and do not know the usual price for a taxi per kilometer, so the taxi driver can turn off the taximeter or argo and set a fixed price. Before going to Indonesia, tourists should search for the most common scamming technique in Indonesia so that they can avoid it in the future.
experienced scamming for a couple of times in my life. But there is this one time that really gets in my head and I feel like people need to know about this to be more aware of their surroundings. It was 2 years ago, I was at school and it’s just a normal day. When I checked my phone, there were like 10 or more missed calls from my parents. I immediately call my parents and ask them what is going on. But this part really got me, they sound terrified, almost like crying, they told me that someone called them saying that I was in an accident and was rushed to the hospital. My parents told me that the person that was calling them ask my parents to transfer a huge amount of money to his bank account for my hospital bills to get me recovered as soon as possible. Luckily, my parents called me first and make sure that it’s not a scam. Because there were a lot of scam cases like that in that year, so my parents made sure that I was okay. They also called my school when I didn’t pick up my phone. Since that day, I have been more careful when a stranger calls me or giving me some bad news without I, myself, made sure of the truth. We should be more careful in anything we do, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t trust anyone, just be more aware of our surroundings.
Indonesians just like the rest of the population, use their handphones, and everyone who uses handphone, will certainly be subjected to scamming. The rampant scam text messages and phone calls that often mislead people into believing what is not happening, are a common thing that happens to almost every handphone users. The most known case is the “Minta Pulsa” type of scam. It’s basically a text from an unknown number who claims to be a family or a relative of the victim, and asking the victim to send an amount of phone balance while claiming that they’re in a dire situation, most of the time the scammers would say that they’ve been brought to the police station and had to make calls but only have a little balance left in their phones. Another scam that happens in Indonesia, occasionally, is the fake phone calls, but the interesting part is : there are few scammers who can somehow mimic the voice of the victim’s family/relative/friends etc. to persuade that the call is a legitimate distress call from the victim’s relative or family. My mom was a victim to this type of scamming, she had taken a call in which the scammer told her that her son, that’s me, was arrested for speeding and to make the bail, the scammer demanded a hundred thousand rupiahs or something, but fortunately my mom knew I was in a competition and I hadn’t had my driving licence and that my dad dropped me off at the competition venue, and my mom had managed to not lose money. Interesting story huh?
In Indonesia scams can appear almost everywhere. You can find scams on the streets, in stores, and now - because of how advanced technology has become - in social media and online shops. There are so many advertisements that we can find on social medias such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter that are scams. It has become such a normal thing that now no one really believes in advertisements anymore, more specifically if the advertisement contains something like “free stuff” or “you just won!” and such. Scams in online shops are also a pretty common thing in Indonesia. My friends and I have experienced being scammed as buyers. We were getting a handbag for our friend as a birthday gift, and it’s somewhat our fault because we added the wrong LINE account. We didn’t use ‘@‘ and didn’t add the official account of the shop. Instead, we transferred our money to the scammer’s account and they just deleted their LINE, so we lost their contact. As a seller, I was almost scammed too. This person wanted to buy something from me, but assured me that she will transfer the money once she gets to a mall, and told me to send her the product first. I told her that it’s not possible and there’s no way a seller should give the product first without the buyer paying. She kept on trying to make me send her the product and after I refuse each time, she stopped replying to me. A few days later her account was reported and got deleted for scamming.
Scams are common here in Indonesia and it could happen in any kind, even the smallest things like fake messages and phone calls. Just like some of the people commenting here, I have also experienced scam through a phone call. It happened after my dad fetched me from school, the moment we arrived at my house he received a call claiming it was my school. He was told that her daughter fell down from the stairs and was taken to the hospital so he needed to transfer some money. What funny was that I was sitting next to him the whole conversation in a perfect condition. So, he just laughed it off and disconnected the call. Nevertheless, we both wondered where did this scammer got my personal information, because the scammer even mentioned my full name and my father’s as well as which school I attended to make it even more convincing. The point is we should be careful of the news we received and not to immediately take it as valid information. If it is about a close family member, make sure to contact other family member to clarify the news.
A scam is done by dishonest people to get money or valuable goods. Based on what I read, Indonesia is a country full of scams. We can find scams commonly on fake phone messages and calls, even tricks done in famous tourist spots. Yogyakarta is a city full of tourists, scammers take advantage of this opportunity to trick both local and foreign tourists. Foreign tourists have to be more careful though, as they might not know how to avoid scams in Indonesia.
I was a victim of a scam in Malioboro Street three years ago when I had an excursion to Yogyakarta with my high school friends. A random person came up to both of my friends and I, trying to promote a certain brand of perfume that was sold at Rp100.000,00. He had a quiz, and if we answer it right, we can buy one of his perfume for only Rp30.000,00. Apparently, we answered it right, and I don’t think there was a right or wrong answer that time, so he forced the three of us to buy three perfumes each, even though we don’t want any. Also, he somehow made us feel bad if we don’t buy the perfumes. Other tourist spots in Yogyakarta like the Keraton is known for scams. There are usually fake tour guides that offer to bring you around and explain the history of the site, and give you the impression that their service is free. However, you will be charged a lot of money at the end of your tour.
Scams happen a lot in Indonesia, it can happen everywhere, at any moment, and to everyone. Take my household in Jakarta for example, There’s a lot of scam happening around. I’d say two of the most common is ‘Fake massage’ and ‘Fake guest’. Fake massage is when someone anonymous suddenly sent a message to your phone claiming that either they know or they are from a formal institution and it is an “Emergency Situation”. The most frequent message says something like this ; “Urgent! This is your kid’s teacher from xxxx school, your kid just had an accident and now he is at xxxx hospital, need (IDR xxxx) for the cost of operation. Transfer as soon as possible, so that the procedure can be done immediately”. Or you might get a call from these ‘scammers’ that says something similar to the above message. The other form of common scam is having someone come into your house and claiming that they already had an appointment with the house owner. Usually the one who got scammed by this kind of motive is the household maid that comes from rural places. Be careful with some strangers that seemed kind of fishy, because they might attempt to scam you.
Scam often happen in Indonesia because people trying to find money as fast as possible with the eaziest way like trick or pretending to other people that they need money, this action often came from poor background family because they’re not well educated and doesn’t have enough skill to find a job, so scamming become their alternatives to find money, but this doesn’t mean that all scamming were done by poor people, sometimes well educated person can make this scam action too, example like online scamming, which is often happen in indonesia because its so easy to do and hard to find the perpetrator, online scamming is something that we faced everyday since we are so depend on the internet, since internet users in Indonesia is so big, online scamming became big business too because they can find money just sitting at their home in front of their laptop and making a lot of money, 1 of the example of online scamming is selling something that doesn’t really exist and sell it in the online market, but people nowdays know how to not get scammed since theres a lot news spread about this action and a way how to avoid it.
Once again, i want to talk about my opinion which is how to solve this kind of problem and in this case is scams especially in Indonesia. What is the main reasons of scam activities happening? Ofcourse, money. Because they like this kind of ‘making money’ method a lot more than other legal way of doing so. Either the bigger money or easier things to do. How do we solve that? In the theory, it is very simple. The only thing the country should do is make the jobs have higher pay rate. This is proven as two of the top three highest average income countries in the world have the lowest criminal action in the world, those countries are Switzerland and Luxembourg. But in reality, Indonesia is still have a quite far journey to reach that point. ` Being that in mind, while our country doing the preventive action with struggling to make higher income, we need to improve the repressive way. We need a better police’s service. Just be honest with me, how many of you that know the police’s number of Indonesia? I believe that are a lot more of people who do not know than the one that know. Therefore how can the scam activities stopped if no one is going to stop them? How can someone stop them if no one reporting them to police? How can we report to police if we do not even know how to contact them? Even if we manage to do so, at the time when we contact them usually the scammer would have gone. We need better police services like other countries already had, especially US. The average time for police to come in front of your house is roughly 7 or 8 minutes everybody! And for a squad of police? Forty eight minutes! Come on Indonesia, 4 or 5 years ago the police took about 1 day to come to my neighbor when there was a theft! Upgrade our police services, downgrade our scam and criminal activities!
Talking about scams, I suddenly remembered something. So two years ago when I was still in high school, I was walking with my friend discussing about our homework when suddenly two men showed up in front of us and they offered us to donate to an organization that supports breast cancer patients. At that time because we were in a hurry, we said no but then they forced us to listen to them and we had no other choice but to let them talk. While one of the guy was talking, the other guy asked us to fill in a little paper and they said it was only for data. When we finished filling the data, they asked us to give them Rp200.000 and we said no immediately. But they said that we've already filled the data so we have to pay. We were so confused and we said that we thought it was only for a data but turns out it is a coupon to prove that we've donated for the community. We were so mad but because there is only two of us at that time we had no other choice but to pay. The saddest thing is that we couldn't complain as we are too scared. If I could go back I would definitely complain. It still annoy me though. I'm still wondering where our money went.
By definition, scam is an illegal trick to unsuspecting person to harness other people or group by giving them a false information during an offer or a transaction. I would like to talk about scams that are happening in the internet because there are lots of types of scams that we can find in the internet today. Some of them are phishing, action fraud, donation scam, catfish, cold-call scam, 419, chain mail, online survey scams, and etc. phishing is a scam where they send an email that contains a fake site that logs the victim’s username and password information. Action fraud is a trick to fool the victim by selling a product that are not actually exist. Donation scam is basically a scammer puts a fake donation and use that donation money for their own expenditure. Catfish scam is done by creating a fake profile in order to deceive other people and the scammers use it to ask the victim for money. Scamming is illegal because the scammers earn money from other people by fooling them, so we need to be aware of these scams.
It’s sad when Indonesian tourist site still have these kinds of people that willing to scam you in your holiday. The feeling when your hard-earned cash is gone because of scam is just plain bad. Some of her point in the video is true even my mother taught me something similar like don’t use taxi other than blue bird taxi and about renting from trusted places. In many tourist destinations, there are many people that going to scam you to charge more money out of your wallet. Luckily, I never got scammed in my life but my cousin was. He was phoned by an unknown person from unknown number that told him that he from the police. That person told him that his friend has been hit by a car and need advance payment for the hospital. At moment of panic, my cousin transfers the money and never heard about that person again. So, in the end we must be careful with someone unknown because the can be a scammer.
In 2017 when there were school holidays, I and my family could not stay far from my village, it was famous for their special food characteristics. In the bukit the most interesting thing is Jam Gadang because the one that stands out from the bukit tinggi so it's no wonder that the area is very crowded with visitors from various cities including tourists who come to visit the bukit tinggi. There are many places to find Padang food places, by the typical region, clothes, accessories, and other things. I am a genuine minang person. I once bought 3 bracelets for Rp. 30,000 and that was a loss to me. I thought maybe I was pressing about bracelets using Indonesian language, finally I used Minang language but the shop that sells the bracelets did not want to lower the price and he said that the price was right. I decided to go and look for another, and I want to use Minang language to get a cheap price. I am indeed a native of Minang. As I walked around looking for bracelets, I found a bracelet that was very beautiful and I was eager to buy, without waiting for a long time I walked to the shop and immediately helped what the price was. I want a bracelet that with language and the seller says that 3 pieces cost Rp. 30,000. I also decided to find a source of prices for me. It's really hard to come to the seller to sell cheap bracelets after I offered to buy 6 fingers of a different type he said "yes" and I paid for Rp. 30,000. Because 1 bracelet he sold for Rp. 10,000 have been detrimental to buyers, Buyers can get 2 bracelets if they pay with 10,000.
This article reminds me about my experience with scammers. This happened during my study in my middle school. Me and my friend called Bryan went to a mall in Kediri. In that mall there was a stand that sold smartphones, but they sell it in a different way. They provide a survey to be filled by people that come through their shop. The shopkeeper told the people that this is just a game and by doing this survey the customers can win a certain voucher that can give discounts for the purchase of a certain smartphone. Bryan registered to join that survey. But before the doing the surveys the shopkeeper told Bryan to sign a piece of paper, the shopkeeper said that it is for keeping the data for how many people that come to that shop. After Bryan fill the survey he got a discount voucher for 5%, but he did not want to use that voucher.
Then the shopkeeper forced Bryan to buy the smartphone, and he brought a piece of paper containing terms that the receiver of the voucher is obligated to purchase the phone that was discounted by the voucher. The shopkeeper printed the terms after the paper was signed. In my opinion, this method was unethical especially for doing business. This is a really bad situation for Bryan, but I found a solution to the problem. In the terms it is stated that the purchase can be started by paying Rp 200.000, and there is no time limitation on fulfilling the purchase. In that case I had an idea to only pay the initial fee but do not pay for the rest of it. After paying for the initial fee, we went to the police station to tell the scamming story to the police. Thankfully, The scammer is no longer selling their products in the mall.
Scams in Indonesia has been done since a long time ago. The scams occurred in many ways, such as using the messages, personal approach, and hypnotizing the victims. The message scams is the most scam that happens in Indonesia. The message usually told the victims that they won some kind of prizes that some operators give them, and ask them to go into a website that actually a scam. In those websites, they’re asked to give their personal information, such as home address, email, phone number, and even card number. One of my friends have ever been scammed. He was contacted by a foreigner from Europe, by Whatsapp number. He chatted her, and they were getting closer and closer. The man told my friend that he was going to go to Indonesia to visit her, and she was asked for her address. She gave him the address, and the man told her that he was going to send her a package, containing phones, laptop, and even jewelries. For some days, she waited for the package, and after several days, the man told her that the package was being held by the Customs, and he asked her to pay the customs fee, transferred to his account. Of course she paid it, as she trusted the man. She paid around 1 million rupiahs, and the package never came, and when she realized that was a scam, the man already blocked her number.
2 weeks ago, I was approached by a lady that offered me discountrestaurant vouchers. I was not interested but somehow she made me give my phone number to her. I ended up being texted and called by her, so I met her few hours later and purchased the voucher. A week later, when I was in a class, my friend told me about the scam and asked me to make a report. I, honestly did not really care about the scam. And I didn’t think that my Rp100.000 is worth the report. But this friend of mine kept calling me so I picked up the phone. He needed me at the security post as fast as possible, I was panic so I ask permission to my lecturer and went to the security post. At the security post I made the report and I was asked to see the two suspected scammers. I refused, I did not want to involve any further in this case. But at that point, I cogitated over those people on behalf of Lupus. So I encourage myself and went to the room where two suspected scammers were sitting. After that I make a report again, and the two suspected scammers were taken to the police station.
Six months ago, I was a victim of an online scam. And yes, some of you might start facepalming yourselves after reading this. I was in Bandung when this happened, one day, a friend of mine approached me and asked, “do you want to make money from some football online betting site? We’ll be 6 people if you join and invest with us.” Without any long, thorough thinking, I agreed upon joining since I had lots of savings back then. So, after gathering all our money, we contacted a guy who is apparently trusted and vouched by our channels. We paid him a certain amount of money to get ‘inside tips’ on what to bet and who to bet. This turned out to be a complete fail because we didn’t get any of the bets right and that we were always off by a little point to win. Stupidly, we repeated this for two more times as we were curious, and for each time we did it, we got even greedier and betted higher than we did in the previous.
Confused and disappointed, we didn’t know whether we should continue in order to at least make up for our losses or stop to prevent further loss. However, the person who was giving us the tips (in exchange for money) contacted us and suggested that we should use a different site to gamble on. The person told us that the way he could work things out is that we need to register an account on the gambling site, add money into it and he would jockey us to make profit. We were so desperate to the point that we were gullible enough to follow his advice although it seemed sketchy and suspicious. After giving him our account details for him to jockey, we waited a couple of days. Our instincts were telling us that something’s not right. So we checked our account and BOOM, our instincts were correct, the password was wrong/invalid meaning he must’ve obviously changed it. We tried contacting him but he wasn’t answering, and when he did, his replies were vague and short. As time went by, there was finally news from him, he sent us a screenshot of the earnings in our account, our account balance showed 22 MILLION RUPIAH!
The next instruction given to us was, “pay a down payment of 10% as half of the commission and I’ll return the account, the down payment is to ensure that you won’t run away with the money after the account is given.” Still sceptical, yet distracted by the excitement in our winnings, we eventually paid him the 10%. He returned the account to us with the new password after showing him we transferred the demanded amount. I had bad a feeling about this and it was proven right when we opened our account. Our balance was zero, nothing, nada. We tried contacting him again but as you all could guess, he blocked every single communication medium between us. The six of us were extremely furious to the point where we sat ourselves down because we felt completely helpless, not knowing what to do next. The transaction history did state his full name and bank account number, but it was still useless because we’d look like total morons if we filed a report to the bank about getting scammed due to online gambling. All of us lost a huge sum of money because of this incident and we spent the rest of the night reflecting on our actions to avoid repeating the same mistake in our life. The scammer/thief got away with everything because we decided to forget about the incident and let everything slip away.
I had some experiences when it comes to scams in Indonesia. One day, I was at a mall in South Jakarta and was approached by a guy that sells vouchers to help cancer organization (what he claimed to be at that moment). At first, I trusted him and paid Rp100.000- for a bundle of vouchers. The vouchers looked a bit shady, but I couldn’t care less back then because all I was thinking is to help people. Then, the next week when I came to the same mall, I was approached by the same guy and now he uses different reason on selling those vouchers. Not just twice that I’ve been approached by him, but many times. Sometimes he approached me with a bunch of his friends. The second encounter forward, I always say the same thing: I didn’t bring any money (although I did actually). After several encounter I went to the security station and told the security about what happened. Surprisingly, the security said that there have been several reports about this case. I’d say be careful in wherever you are and always report to the authorities whenever there is something suspicious.
I got scammed once, it was quite scary. It was back in 2015, back when I was still in high school. It was a rather relaxing weekend, my grandmother was staying and I didn’t have any homework. About fifteen minutes after Dzuhur, the bell rang. My maid, rushed to it expecting my dad to be at the door. But it was not my dad, it was a stranger. He introduced himself as one of my dad’s colleague. He said that he was coming over to check how’s the family doing, so he asked me to come down. After I came, and talked with him, I was surprised that he knew a lot about my family’s activities, whereabouts and overall information even things that we don’t publicly share, like the PC we built in our house. Because of that, I trusted him when he said he is a close colleague of my dad. He then said my dad asked me to give my laptop to him, so he can fix it. After I gave the laptop, he hit the gas and never looked back. It really was a stranger that knew a lot about my family’s information.
In my opinion, scams are like deceitful way from someone who plans for making money. For instance, when you are in the airports and you will find a lot of drivers who offer you accommodation to go somewhere, but they don’t tell the price. Suddenly, when you have arrived in that place, the price is unreasonable, like 30 dollars or 40 dollars just for 4 km trip. That case, sometimes make the victims feel upset because the perpetrators threat them like nothing happened, all is fine, and the price will be cheap. But the fact is not. Thus, my solution to prevent occurrences similar to scams is to be more careful from your surrounding. If there are a lot of people offer you about something, like accommodation, donation, or something else, you must know it in details. For instance like the price, how you go there, know it thoroughly. I think this solution is the foremost thing to decide you will accept their offer or not, if you just accept it without any details, maybe you will get their trap if you’re in an unfortunate situation.
Scam is a problem that already happening a lot in our daily life. Scam is a fraudulent scheme performed by a dishonest individual, group, or company in an attempt obtain money or something else of value. Scam involves tricking people to spend their money. In Indonesia, scam could possibly happen in many ways. One of the most common scam that happens in Indonesia is online scamming and text massage scamming. I could say that mostly everyday there are some random numbers that send me a text message saying that I won a lottery. I believe that most of the people that they text are smart enough and don't trust it since they don't join any lottery. What makes me wondering is, why they keep sending text message to people everyday while no one trust them? Or maybe is it possible that these days there are still people who trust them? This fact is pretty unique because how could you trust this kind of scam since there are a lot of news saying that this kind of text message is a scam.
The definition of scam is an illegal plan for making money, especially one that involves tricking people when people got scammed, they felt dumb because the doer used a smart trick to convinced victims to spent their money. For example, the doer tells victims to donate their money to an organization to help earthquake’s victims, but the doer uses the victims money for their own good. Even dating and romance can be used as a scam. “Dating scam” usually takes place in an online dating platform. Dating and romance scammers use a fictional name and will go to great lengths to gain your interest and trust, such as showering you with loving words Once they gained your personal information and trust, they pretend that that really need money for some sort of personal emergency and they will ask the money form victims. Thank god I haven’t got scammed, but all of you should watch out because these scammers get smarter as the time goes by.
ReplyDeleteOn Friday, you told us that this post is made after a scam issue occurred in the campus area of UGM. Well, I am one of those people who actually got approached / contacted by the suspected scammer. I was sitting at one of the round table near the selasar alone since I was expecting a video call from someone. I saw a lady was walking towards me and asking permission if she could present something to me for 2 minutes only. And of course, I said yes. Moreover, the lady’s quite pretty. Anyway, she sat down facing me and said that she’s from the Indonesia Lupus Foundation selling villa and restaurant vouchers for charity. The vouchers were offered for Rp.100.000 each. I did not bring any money and didn’t have any intention to help at that time, but I am a typical Indonesian who’s reluctant to say no, so I said that I’ll think about that. She asked me my whatsapp number and I gave her. I don’t know why I gave her my number. 2 hours after, she called me and texted me through WhatsApp. I did not reply after I saw a broadcasted message at a group chat about this ‘scam’.
ReplyDeleteThis is kind off interesting but I did actually experienced the exact same thing as what happened to Aziz Akbar. Basically i was just chilling in my car waiting for the class, then suddenly there is this woman approaching my car. At first, i thought it was one my friend because they kinda look similar, but then she started knocking the window of my car and asked me to get out of the car so that we could talk more comfortably. I was like “what the hell is going on”, then i refused to do it and i opened the window instead. As Aziz said, she claimed that she’s from the Indonesia Lupus Foundation and were about to sell a villa and restaurant vouchers for charity, and its about Rp.100.000. She explain a LOT of thing about this charity until it reached a point where i’d feel guilty if i reject her offer. Besides she looked quiet well dressed and attractive and seemed to be promising. Therefore,without any hesitation i gave her the Rp.100.000 and after i read Aziz akbar’s comment, i just realized that it was a scam.
DeleteI experienced the exact same thing too. When I arrived in Jogja, I visit some furniture stores to fill up the room that I’ll be using for the next few years. I actually went with my mother but then we went separately to get things that we want for our own. As I was walking and looking around, I was approached by a man, that I somehow believed, has been watching me. I think one of the reasons he approached me is that because I was alone. That makes me an easy target to whatever his aim was. He offered me to handshake very kindly. He told me he was from the Indonesia Lupus Foundation, just like what was told to Aziz and Daffa. He showed me what lupus is like and he told me more about it too. He then offered a book consisting of vouchers that cost for Rp. 100.000 each. Honestly, I was already getting a weird vibe ever since I felt like I was being watched and ever since I realise he was walking towards me. I was very unsure of the offer, even the handshake felt strange. As he explained more about his aim of approaching, I think I showed some kind of attitude that does not make this man comfortable. He then told me if I was disturbed, so I told him that I was in a rush. He ended up apologizing and leave. As for Aziz’s case, I can’t imagine that they actually put such effort for such scam by still contacting through whatsapp. The motif and the real organisation that’s behind all of this is really still a huge mystery for me.
DeleteThere is a huge exploitation happening in Yogyakarta about parking fees. I wouldn't call it a scam, but as Dava stated "Scam is an illegal plan for making money". Now i'm not saying it is illegal to have parking fee's and the people asking for them have done no crime whatsoever, if they followed the law that has been established. According to the Local Regulation Number 4 2016 and Number 5 2017 of Yogyakarta it is stated that "the parking fee for motorcycles are Rp. 1000 and for cars it is Rp. 2000". However, as we can see in our daily activities we are usually charged Rp. 2000 when we are parking with MOTORCYCLES. What do you think? Does this count as a scam? Personally I don't really mind that I pay Rp. 2000 for parking fees, however it might bother somebody else because it does not follow regulations which means that it is an illegal transaction.
ReplyDeleteI just realized my spelling error "fee's" on the third line. also the word "are" in line 6 should be "is" because it is about the parking fee which is singular.
DeleteReference
DeleteTribun Jogja (May 27, 2018) "Lebaran, Tarif Parkir Motor Tetap Rp. 1000 dan Mobil Rp. 2000". Retrieved from http://jogja.tribunnews.com/2018/05/27/lebaran-tarif-parkir-motor-tetap-rp-1000-dan-mobil-rp-2000 Date of Access September 2, 2018
Scam or fraud is something that has long been a problem in Indonesia. And with the emergence of online shop sites such as Tokopedia and Bukalapak which provide the chance for people to sell their products, it is likely that scam issues will continue to be a problem. Why? The problem with online shopping is that, the buyers don’t really have the real information about the product that the sellers sell to them. For instance, there are some sellers that sell imitative clothes and shoes of a well-known brands like Nike, Adidas, Balenciaga, and many more. But the sellers would usually say that it is an authentic product, regardless of the price they charge for the products they sell which is often just a fraction of the original one. Another case is when international tourists are given higher price for taxis, drivers, and street foods, just like what the tourist has said in the video. This often happens at tourist spots in Bali, Yogyakarta, and even Jakarta. So, in my opinion, government should move and make regulations that would fix these issues. Because scam issues might defame Indonesia in the eye of people across the world.
ReplyDeleteScam is an illegal plan to take your money by promoting something that is non existant or something that is not as good as the truth, it involves tricking people into spending their money. Speaking of scam, I have been scammed twice whilst I was spending my holiday in bali. First is that when I was renting a surfboard on the kuta beach, and the second was while I was eating at the Jimbaran beach. The surfboard rental gave me a surfboard wih a broken fin, and when I know that It was broken, they accused me of breaking it. Since I was just 15 years old at that time, they told me if I didn’t paid for the damage, they would not let me go back to the hotel until I paid for the damage. I was so scared at that moment because I didn’t brought any money with me. The second time I got scammed in Bali was at the Jimbaran beach. I didn’t know whether this can be categorized as a scam or is it just my family negligence. At that time when we ordered the food, we didn’t ask about how much will it cost for a 5 person to eat, and when the bill came, the food costed us three million rupiahs. We were so shocked at that time because we were not expecting the bill to be that high. The moral story is, as a tourist you should be careful and look twice before you purchased or ordered something, because in some tourist area, the locals might see you as a target and therefore scamming you to get the money out of your pocket.
ReplyDeleteScams often happen in many ways, in Indonesia. Thus, I always think that scams is a normal thing until one moment, I feel it my self. I was tricked by an online shop on ‘instagram’. About a year ago, I ordered souvenirs for my friends in the event of my birthday, on a certain online shop. They asked me to transfer the money first, then they will make the souvenirs, so I did transfer it to them. Days by days, there are no further information about my orders, they did not reply my chats, worse, they did not even read them. Firstly, I think that they are too busy too reply my chats, I try to keep a positive mind before judging them. Unfortunately, it has been 3 weeks, and yet I still haven’t got news from the online shop. I tried to call them, sending them chats as much as I could, there was still no answer. It seems that they blocked me at that moment. Then I realize, that I was scammed by an online shop, which actually, they had many followers and looked very trusted. I really don’t mind about the amount of money, but I am wondering why they do such things, instead of maintaining their reputation as a good online shop.
ReplyDeleteTourist scam is the most often activity one finds while traveling. Whether it’s traveling abroad to other country or traveling around our own country, many people will often meet scammers throughout their journey. These scammers are also equipped with tools and tricks that surely will manipulate the target into giving out their money for these scammers. Here in Indonesia, it’s not a rare thing for many tourists to be scammed by the local people, especially in Bali. To be honest, I too almost got scammed in Bali. It was during the holiday where my friends and I went to Bali to do a volunteer work in one of the schools located in Ubud. Before my friends and I begin our volunteer work, we decided to visit the Ubud Art Market and buy one of those Bintang tank top. When we got there the seller offered us Rp 100,000 for just a single tank top, which is absurd. Of course, my friend and I didn’t want to buy a tank top shirt that cost 100,000 Rupiah, so we decided to bargain. In the end, after bargaining for so long, my friends and I managed to buy the shirt for Rp 20,000 each. Although it was still too expensive for that low-quality tank top, it was still a great gain for us since we didn’t spend Rp100,000 on just a tank top shirt. My tip on buying some souvenirs or shirt on that market is to bargain like a madman because the price they offered is "tourist price", which is why the things they sell there are very expensive.
ReplyDeleteScam in my opinion is a way or a method to earn money by tricking the buyers. So based on that definiton of mine, yes scam is an illegal thing to do right?. But still people do it all the time especially in Indonesia. Most of the victims were tourists but it does not rule out the possibility of local getting scammed too. Why does this happen? because many people couldn't get the chance as the rich people has and yes it is because of destiny too, but we are not going to talk about that, it is because of the economic state of the country itself. If a country has a good economy that means most of the people got jobs and earn a decent money for a living resulting in less scam. But yes morality is the issue too, Indonesian probably already know the moral of Indonesian mostly have and some of it have really bad morality. So i think we cannot blame those people who scammed them, they do it because maybe they really had to we don't know right?. What i think we must do as an FEB UGM student is fixing the morality of this country and last but not least the economy of this country. -Dimas Aditya Permana
ReplyDeleteScam in Indonesia, especially in the side of tourism is still actively going on. These scams mostly happened towards foreigner or here we call it as 'bule'. As the information given in the video, she stated that the scams were done in Bali. Yes, Bali, we all know that Bali is one of the most attractive site in Indonesia to be visited. Since 2000, on average, there have been five million foreign tourists each year. By the information, we can easily know why scams are oftenly occurred in Bali. Scamming does occur because of firstly the needs of sellers to fulfill their daily needs and also secondly because they look onto the side of tourism that also could support the first reason why it occurred. Scamming in the side of tourism is mainly come from the acknowledgment of the workers that foreigners have higher income and also knowing that their country's currency strength is stronger and higher than the Indonesian Rupiah. For this case, it could be the effect of our country's economy condition to be one of the causes.
ReplyDeleteI, Myself, also have been scammed. I was scammed not in Bali, but in Yogyakarta. In this case, I can consider myself negligent because I wasn't being assertive in the accident. The accident was happened in the airport between me and a taxi driver. So that time, I was so tired that I just landed from Jakarta. I ordered Go-Car to get back to my boarding house but then the application told me that I have to walk about 1 KM to reach the place because Go-Cars weren't allowed to pick up passengers. Because of that, I reach a taxi driver. I asked him that I'm going to 'Pandega Marta' and I asked him how much is the cost because I am inexperienced going from the airport to my boarding house. He replied to me that to reach the destination is so far and it could cost me Rp.80.000. Because of my phone's dead and my body is really fatigue, I immediately say ‘okay let's go’ and slept almost the whole trip. After reaching the boarding house, I noticed that he didn't use any meters but at the moment I put my trust in him. In my room, after charging my phone and look at how much on average I should pay, I knew that I got scammed. I should've only paid Rp 35.000. From my experience, I knew that scamming could be anywhere and anytime. We should be ready for it, not being ready to be scammed but ready to fight it. We have to be aware at times Indonesians talk about money, because it could lead to scam. Indonesia is a paradise, but its law enforcements are the opposite.
ReplyDeleteOn 21 January 2018, a phenomenal rookie K-Pop group, Wanna One, had a fan meeting in Jakarta. Me and my friend actually wanted to attend that event. Since there are early bird tickets and it’s sold only for the promotor’s members, I looked for someone with a membership and willing to buy the tickets for us. They agreed to sell it with extra cost so me and my friend agreed to it. A few weeks before the event, I asked them about the tickets and they ignored me. Even after the fan meeting finished, they still didn’t respond to my texts. From the name of the bank account’s owner, we searched for their social media and able to be in contact with them. After my mom investigate the situation, we found out that the bank account used by the scammer is not theirs. Apparently, they use someone else’s who attended an earlier concert with them. When my mom asked the bank, it looks like the bank account the scammer used is empty and we weren’t able to retrieve the money. We couldn’t contact the real scammer, too. Luckily, me and my friend decided to buy the cheapest tickets so we just gave up and lost about two million rupiahs.
ReplyDeleteScamming is ridiculously common here in Indonesia because it happens on a daily basis. Sadly, I was once scammed during sophomore year of High School. What happened was I got an assignment where I had to make a business plan with my friends, we then had to generate the product and sell it. We decided that we were going to sell t-shirts and caps with our own custom made designs. We proceeded by contacting a local custom t-shirt maker. We decided that we wanted to make 10 t-shirts and 10 caps since we were still in a process of observing the market. We have already paid the whole transaction because they told us that we have to pay it fully before they start processing the products. We ended up doing what the owners told us to do and they said that our orders will be done in a week. A week later we went there and half of the batch of our t-shirts were done so we took them and they said that the rest of our orders will be done in a couple of days. Couple of days later, we went to get the rest of our remaining orders but when we got there, turns out that our remaining orders weren’t done yet so they told us to come back in 2 days. 2 days later, the orders were still not finished. This kept repeating for a whole month. We kept going back and forth thinking that our products will be done by the time we got there until we just gave up a week before the assignment was due. The owner didn’t take us seriously and he kept saying that it will be ready next week or in a couple of days but until today, we never end up receiving our remaining orders.
ReplyDeleteScam is a crime that happens quite often in Indonesia. This is because lots of people here still live below the poverty line. There are many cases related to scam in Indonesia. Scam comes in many different types such as; stealing identities to commit fraudulent actions like using the victim's credit card, impersonating charities and ask for donations claiming to collect money after natural disasters, tricking job-seekers by offering an 'easy’ way to get high-paying job with little effort, taking advantage of the people who are looking for romantic partners via dating websites, apps or social media by pretending to be prospective companion and then asking the victim to provide money, gifts or personal details, etc. The vast number of scam is driven by the development of technology. The victims also varies from underage to adults, from locals to tourists. I am lucky I've never been in a situation that correlates with scam. And by knowing these facts, I hope I can always be aware of my surroundings and be alert at all times.
ReplyDeleteWe as Indonesian citizen probably couldn’t really relate on what the woman were saying, those things mostly happened to tourist or foreigners. But those kind of stuff actually happened. I was and exchange student so me and my fellow Indonesian exchange student often take the exchange student from another country to go on a trip or something. We usually go to Malioboro, Tamansari, etc. It is common that street vendors would charge foreigners for more money, so me and my friends would buy it for them. In Indonesia, scam has been a never ending problem. We probably know about message scam, call scam, and so much more. When I was in junior high school, I suddenly got called by the school and they told me that my parents got scammed. Afterwards, my parents told me that they got called by someone telling them that their son (which is me) got into an accident at school and had to be taken to hospital. They told my parents to pay the hospital fees and they did. I personally think that this problem would keep happening and neither government nor the police could handle all of the mess. We should learn from experience, be smart, be careful and protect our self from those scams.
ReplyDeleteScamming is a very annoying thing that has been happening in Indonesia. Personally, I have never been scammed in Indonesia before as far as I can remember. Though, I have heard many stories regarding the scamming activities in Indonesia from some of my acquaintances. Just like many others said in the comment, scammers in Indonesia usually target the tourists that know little about Indonesia. The most common scam event is usually the one where people manipulate the price of a transportation. This is one of the easiest methods because tourists do not really know how far their destination is and do not know the usual price for a taxi per kilometer, so the taxi driver can turn off the taximeter or argo and set a fixed price. Before going to Indonesia, tourists should search for the most common scamming technique in Indonesia so that they can avoid it in the future.
ReplyDeleteexperienced scamming for a couple of times in my life. But there is this one time that really gets in my head and I feel like people need to know about this to be more aware of their surroundings. It was 2 years ago, I was at school and it’s just a normal day. When I checked my phone, there were like 10 or more missed calls from my parents. I immediately call my parents and ask them what is going on. But this part really got me, they sound terrified, almost like crying, they told me that someone called them saying that I was in an accident and was rushed to the hospital. My parents told me that the person that was calling them ask my parents to transfer a huge amount of money to his bank account for my hospital bills to get me recovered as soon as possible. Luckily, my parents called me first and make sure that it’s not a scam. Because there were a lot of scam cases like that in that year, so my parents made sure that I was okay. They also called my school when I didn’t pick up my phone. Since that day, I have been more careful when a stranger calls me or giving me some bad news without I, myself, made sure of the truth. We should be more careful in anything we do, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t trust anyone, just be more aware of our surroundings.
ReplyDeleteIndonesians just like the rest of the population, use their handphones, and everyone who uses handphone, will certainly be subjected to scamming. The rampant scam text messages and phone calls that often mislead people into believing what is not happening, are a common thing that happens to almost every handphone users. The most known case is the “Minta Pulsa” type of scam. It’s basically a text from an unknown number who claims to be a family or a relative of the victim, and asking the victim to send an amount of phone balance while claiming that they’re in a dire situation, most of the time the scammers would say that they’ve been brought to the police station and had to make calls but only have a little balance left in their phones. Another scam that happens in Indonesia, occasionally, is the fake phone calls, but the interesting part is : there are few scammers who can somehow mimic the voice of the victim’s family/relative/friends etc. to persuade that the call is a legitimate distress call from the victim’s relative or family. My mom was a victim to this type of scamming, she had taken a call in which the scammer told her that her son, that’s me, was arrested for speeding and to make the bail, the scammer demanded a hundred thousand rupiahs or something, but fortunately my mom knew I was in a competition and I hadn’t had my driving licence and that my dad dropped me off at the competition venue, and my mom had managed to not lose money. Interesting story huh?
ReplyDeleteIn Indonesia scams can appear almost everywhere. You can find scams on the streets, in stores, and now - because of how advanced technology has become - in social media and online shops. There are so many advertisements that we can find on social medias such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter that are scams. It has become such a normal thing that now no one really believes in advertisements anymore, more specifically if the advertisement contains something like “free stuff” or “you just won!” and such.
ReplyDeleteScams in online shops are also a pretty common thing in Indonesia. My friends and I have experienced being scammed as buyers. We were getting a handbag for our friend as a birthday gift, and it’s somewhat our fault because we added the wrong LINE account. We didn’t use ‘@‘ and didn’t add the official account of the shop. Instead, we transferred our money to the scammer’s account and they just deleted their LINE, so we lost their contact. As a seller, I was almost scammed too. This person wanted to buy something from me, but assured me that she will transfer the money once she gets to a mall, and told me to send her the product first. I told her that it’s not possible and there’s no way a seller should give the product first without the buyer paying. She kept on trying to make me send her the product and after I refuse each time, she stopped replying to me. A few days later her account was reported and got deleted for scamming.
Scams are common here in Indonesia and it could happen in any kind, even the smallest things like fake messages and phone calls. Just like some of the people commenting here, I have also experienced scam through a phone call. It happened after my dad fetched me from school, the moment we arrived at my house he received a call claiming it was my school. He was told that her daughter fell down from the stairs and was taken to the hospital so he needed to transfer some money. What funny was that I was sitting next to him the whole conversation in a perfect condition. So, he just laughed it off and disconnected the call. Nevertheless, we both wondered where did this scammer got my personal information, because the scammer even mentioned my full name and my father’s as well as which school I attended to make it even more convincing. The point is we should be careful of the news we received and not to immediately take it as valid information. If it is about a close family member, make sure to contact other family member to clarify the news.
ReplyDeleteA scam is done by dishonest people to get money or valuable goods. Based on what I read, Indonesia is a country full of scams. We can find scams commonly on fake phone messages and calls, even tricks done in famous tourist spots. Yogyakarta is a city full of tourists, scammers take advantage of this opportunity to trick both local and foreign tourists. Foreign tourists have to be more careful though, as they might not know how to avoid scams in Indonesia.
ReplyDeleteI was a victim of a scam in Malioboro Street three years ago when I had an excursion to Yogyakarta with my high school friends. A random person came up to both of my friends and I, trying to promote a certain brand of perfume that was sold at Rp100.000,00. He had a quiz, and if we answer it right, we can buy one of his perfume for only Rp30.000,00. Apparently, we answered it right, and I don’t think there was a right or wrong answer that time, so he forced the three of us to buy three perfumes each, even though we don’t want any. Also, he somehow made us feel bad if we don’t buy the perfumes. Other tourist spots in Yogyakarta like the Keraton is known for scams. There are usually fake tour guides that offer to bring you around and explain the history of the site, and give you the impression that their service is free. However, you will be charged a lot of money at the end of your tour.
Scams happen a lot in Indonesia, it can happen everywhere, at any moment, and to everyone. Take my household in Jakarta for example, There’s a lot of scam happening around. I’d say two of the most common is ‘Fake massage’ and ‘Fake guest’. Fake massage is when someone anonymous suddenly sent a message to your phone claiming that either they know or they are from a formal institution and it is an “Emergency Situation”. The most frequent message says something like this ; “Urgent! This is your kid’s teacher from xxxx school, your kid just had an accident and now he is at xxxx hospital, need (IDR xxxx) for the cost of operation. Transfer as soon as possible, so that the procedure can be done immediately”. Or you might get a call from these ‘scammers’ that says something similar to the above message. The other form of common scam is having someone come into your house and claiming that they already had an appointment with the house owner. Usually the one who got scammed by this kind of motive is the household maid that comes from rural places. Be careful with some strangers that seemed kind of fishy, because they might attempt to scam you.
ReplyDeleteScam often happen in Indonesia because people trying to find money as fast as possible with the eaziest way like trick or pretending to other people that they need money, this action often came from poor background family because they’re not well educated and doesn’t have enough skill to find a job, so scamming become their alternatives to find money, but this doesn’t mean that all scamming were done by poor people, sometimes well educated person can make this scam action too, example like online scamming, which is often happen in indonesia because its so easy to do and hard to find the perpetrator, online scamming is something that we faced everyday since we are so depend on the internet, since internet users in Indonesia is so big, online scamming became big business too because they can find money just sitting at their home in front of their laptop and making a lot of money, 1 of the example of online scamming is selling something that doesn’t really exist and sell it in the online market, but people nowdays know how to not get scammed since theres a lot news spread about this action and a way how to avoid it.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, i want to talk about my opinion which is how to solve this kind of problem and in this case is scams especially in Indonesia. What is the main reasons of scam activities happening? Ofcourse, money. Because they like this kind of ‘making money’ method a lot more than other legal way of doing so. Either the bigger money or easier things to do. How do we solve that? In the theory, it is very simple. The only thing the country should do is make the jobs have higher pay rate. This is proven as two of the top three highest average income countries in the world have the lowest criminal action in the world, those countries are Switzerland and Luxembourg. But in reality, Indonesia is still have a quite far journey to reach that point.
ReplyDelete` Being that in mind, while our country doing the preventive action with struggling to make higher income, we need to improve the repressive way. We need a better police’s service. Just be honest with me, how many of you that know the police’s number of Indonesia? I believe that are a lot more of people who do not know than the one that know. Therefore how can the scam activities stopped if no one is going to stop them? How can someone stop them if no one reporting them to police? How can we report to police if we do not even know how to contact them? Even if we manage to do so, at the time when we contact them usually the scammer would have gone. We need better police services like other countries already had, especially US. The average time for police to come in front of your house is roughly 7 or 8 minutes everybody! And for a squad of police? Forty eight minutes! Come on Indonesia, 4 or 5 years ago the police took about 1 day to come to my neighbor when there was a theft! Upgrade our police services, downgrade our scam and criminal activities!
Talking about scams, I suddenly remembered something. So two years ago when I was still in high school, I was walking with my friend discussing about our homework when suddenly two men showed up in front of us and they offered us to donate to an organization that supports breast cancer patients. At that time because we were in a hurry, we said no but then they forced us to listen to them and we had no other choice but to let them talk. While one of the guy was talking, the other guy asked us to fill in a little paper and they said it was only for data. When we finished filling the data, they asked us to give them Rp200.000 and we said no immediately. But they said that we've already filled the data so we have to pay. We were so confused and we said that we thought it was only for a data but turns out it is a coupon to prove that we've donated for the community. We were so mad but because there is only two of us at that time we had no other choice but to pay. The saddest thing is that we couldn't complain as we are too scared. If I could go back I would definitely complain. It still annoy me though. I'm still wondering where our money went.
ReplyDeleteBy definition, scam is an illegal trick to unsuspecting person to harness other people or group by giving them a false information during an offer or a transaction. I would like to talk about scams that are happening in the internet because there are lots of types of scams that we can find in the internet today. Some of them are phishing, action fraud, donation scam, catfish, cold-call scam, 419, chain mail, online survey scams, and etc. phishing is a scam where they send an email that contains a fake site that logs the victim’s username and password information. Action fraud is a trick to fool the victim by selling a product that are not actually exist. Donation scam is basically a scammer puts a fake donation and use that donation money for their own expenditure. Catfish scam is done by creating a fake profile in order to deceive other people and the scammers use it to ask the victim for money. Scamming is illegal because the scammers earn money from other people by fooling them, so we need to be aware of these scams.
ReplyDeleteIt’s sad when Indonesian tourist site still have these kinds of people that willing to scam you in your holiday. The feeling when your hard-earned cash is gone because of scam is just plain bad. Some of her point in the video is true even my mother taught me something similar like don’t use taxi other than blue bird taxi and about renting from trusted places. In many tourist destinations, there are many people that going to scam you to charge more money out of your wallet. Luckily, I never got scammed in my life but my cousin was. He was phoned by an unknown person from unknown number that told him that he from the police. That person told him that his friend has been hit by a car and need advance payment for the hospital. At moment of panic, my cousin transfers the money and never heard about that person again. So, in the end we must be careful with someone unknown because the can be a scammer.
ReplyDeleteIn 2017 when there were school holidays, I and my family could not stay far from my village, it was famous for their special food characteristics. In the bukit the most interesting thing is Jam Gadang because the one that stands out from the bukit tinggi so it's no wonder that the area is very crowded with visitors from various cities including tourists who come to visit the bukit tinggi. There are many places to find Padang food places, by the typical region, clothes, accessories, and other things. I am a genuine minang person. I once bought 3 bracelets for Rp. 30,000 and that was a loss to me. I thought maybe I was pressing about bracelets using Indonesian language, finally I used Minang language but the shop that sells the bracelets did not want to lower the price and he said that the price was right. I decided to go and look for another, and I want to use Minang language to get a cheap price. I am indeed a native of Minang. As I walked around looking for bracelets, I found a bracelet that was very beautiful and I was eager to buy, without waiting for a long time I walked to the shop and immediately helped what the price was. I want a bracelet that with language and the seller says that 3 pieces cost Rp. 30,000. I also decided to find a source of prices for me. It's really hard to come to the seller to sell cheap bracelets after I offered to buy 6 fingers of a different type he said "yes" and I paid for Rp. 30,000. Because 1 bracelet he sold for Rp. 10,000 have been detrimental to buyers, Buyers can get 2 bracelets if they pay with 10,000.
ReplyDeleteThis article reminds me about my experience with scammers. This happened during my study in my middle school. Me and my friend called Bryan went to a mall in Kediri. In that mall there was a stand that sold smartphones, but they sell it in a different way. They provide a survey to be filled by people that come through their shop. The shopkeeper told the people that this is just a game and by doing this survey the customers can win a certain voucher that can give discounts for the purchase of a certain smartphone. Bryan registered to join that survey. But before the doing the surveys the shopkeeper told Bryan to sign a piece of paper, the shopkeeper said that it is for keeping the data for how many people that come to that shop. After Bryan fill the survey he got a discount voucher for 5%, but he did not want to use that voucher.
ReplyDeleteThen the shopkeeper forced Bryan to buy the smartphone, and he brought a piece of paper containing terms that the receiver of the voucher is obligated to purchase the phone that was discounted by the voucher. The shopkeeper printed the terms after the paper was signed. In my opinion, this method was unethical especially for doing business. This is a really bad situation for Bryan, but I found a solution to the problem. In the terms it is stated that the purchase can be started by paying Rp 200.000, and there is no time limitation on fulfilling the purchase. In that case I had an idea to only pay the initial fee but do not pay for the rest of it. After paying for the initial fee, we went to the police station to tell the scamming story to the police. Thankfully, The scammer is no longer selling their products in the mall.
DeleteScams in Indonesia has been done since a long time ago. The scams occurred in many ways, such as using the messages, personal approach, and hypnotizing the victims. The message scams is the most scam that happens in Indonesia. The message usually told the victims that they won some kind of prizes that some operators give them, and ask them to go into a website that actually a scam. In those websites, they’re asked to give their personal information, such as home address, email, phone number, and even card number. One of my friends have ever been scammed. He was contacted by a foreigner from Europe, by Whatsapp number. He chatted her, and they were getting closer and closer. The man told my friend that he was going to go to Indonesia to visit her, and she was asked for her address. She gave him the address, and the man told her that he was going to send her a package, containing phones, laptop, and even jewelries. For some days, she waited for the package, and after several days, the man told her that the package was being held by the Customs, and he asked her to pay the customs fee, transferred to his account. Of course she paid it, as she trusted the man. She paid around 1 million rupiahs, and the package never came, and when she realized that was a scam, the man already blocked her number.
ReplyDelete2 weeks ago, I was approached by a lady that offered me discountrestaurant vouchers. I was not interested but somehow she made me give my phone number to her. I ended up being texted and called by her, so I met her few hours later and purchased the voucher. A week later, when I was in a class, my friend told me about the scam and asked me to make a report. I, honestly did not really care about the scam. And I didn’t think that my Rp100.000 is worth the report. But this friend of mine kept calling me so I picked up the phone. He needed me at the security post as fast as possible, I was panic so I ask permission to my lecturer and went to the security post. At the security post I made the report and I was asked to see the two suspected scammers. I refused, I did not want to involve any further in this case.
ReplyDeleteBut at that point, I cogitated over those people on behalf of Lupus. So I encourage myself and went to the room where two suspected scammers were sitting. After that I make a report again, and the two suspected scammers were taken to the police station.
Six months ago, I was a victim of an online scam. And yes, some of you might start facepalming yourselves after reading this. I was in Bandung when this happened, one day, a friend of mine approached me and asked, “do you want to make money from some football online betting site? We’ll be 6 people if you join and invest with us.” Without any long, thorough thinking, I agreed upon joining since I had lots of savings back then. So, after gathering all our money, we contacted a guy who is apparently trusted and vouched by our channels. We paid him a certain amount of money to get ‘inside tips’ on what to bet and who to bet. This turned out to be a complete fail because we didn’t get any of the bets right and that we were always off by a little point to win. Stupidly, we repeated this for two more times as we were curious, and for each time we did it, we got even greedier and betted higher than we did in the previous.
ReplyDeleteConfused and disappointed, we didn’t know whether we should continue in order to at least make up for our losses or stop to prevent further loss. However, the person who was giving us the tips (in exchange for money) contacted us and suggested that we should use a different site to gamble on. The person told us that the way he could work things out is that we need to register an account on the gambling site, add money into it and he would jockey us to make profit. We were so desperate to the point that we were gullible enough to follow his advice although it seemed sketchy and suspicious. After giving him our account details for him to jockey, we waited a couple of days. Our instincts were telling us that something’s not right. So we checked our account and BOOM, our instincts were correct, the password was wrong/invalid meaning he must’ve obviously changed it. We tried contacting him but he wasn’t answering, and when he did, his replies were vague and short. As time went by, there was finally news from him, he sent us a screenshot of the earnings in our account, our account balance showed 22 MILLION RUPIAH!
DeleteThe next instruction given to us was, “pay a down payment of 10% as half of the commission and I’ll return the account, the down payment is to ensure that you won’t run away with the money after the account is given.” Still sceptical, yet distracted by the excitement in our winnings, we eventually paid him the 10%. He returned the account to us with the new password after showing him we transferred the demanded amount. I had bad a feeling about this and it was proven right when we opened our account. Our balance was zero, nothing, nada. We tried contacting him again but as you all could guess, he blocked every single communication medium between us. The six of us were extremely furious to the point where we sat ourselves down because we felt completely helpless, not knowing what to do next. The transaction history did state his full name and bank account number, but it was still useless because we’d look like total morons if we filed a report to the bank about getting scammed due to online gambling. All of us lost a huge sum of money because of this incident and we spent the rest of the night reflecting on our actions to avoid repeating the same mistake in our life. The scammer/thief got away with everything because we decided to forget about the incident and let everything slip away.
DeleteI had some experiences when it comes to scams in Indonesia. One day, I was at a mall in South Jakarta and was approached by a guy that sells vouchers to help cancer organization (what he claimed to be at that moment). At first, I trusted him and paid Rp100.000- for a bundle of vouchers. The vouchers looked a bit shady, but I couldn’t care less back then because all I was thinking is to help people. Then, the next week when I came to the same mall, I was approached by the same guy and now he uses different reason on selling those vouchers. Not just twice that I’ve been approached by him, but many times. Sometimes he approached me with a bunch of his friends. The second encounter forward, I always say the same thing: I didn’t bring any money (although I did actually). After several encounter I went to the security station and told the security about what happened. Surprisingly, the security said that there have been several reports about this case. I’d say be careful in wherever you are and always report to the authorities whenever there is something suspicious.
ReplyDeleteI got scammed once, it was quite scary. It was back in 2015, back when I was still in high school. It was a rather relaxing weekend, my grandmother was staying and I didn’t have any homework. About fifteen minutes after Dzuhur, the bell rang. My maid, rushed to it expecting my dad to be at the door. But it was not my dad, it was a stranger. He introduced himself as one of my dad’s colleague. He said that he was coming over to check how’s the family doing, so he asked me to come down. After I came, and talked with him, I was surprised that he knew a lot about my family’s activities, whereabouts and overall information even things that we don’t publicly share, like the PC we built in our house. Because of that, I trusted him when he said he is a close colleague of my dad. He then said my dad asked me to give my laptop to him, so he can fix it. After I gave the laptop, he hit the gas and never looked back. It really was a stranger that knew a lot about my family’s information.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, scams are like deceitful way from someone who plans for making money. For instance, when you are in the airports and you will find a lot of drivers who offer you accommodation to go somewhere, but they don’t tell the price. Suddenly, when you have arrived in that place, the price is unreasonable, like 30 dollars or 40 dollars just for 4 km trip. That case, sometimes make the victims feel upset because the perpetrators threat them like nothing happened, all is fine, and the price will be cheap. But the fact is not. Thus, my solution to prevent occurrences similar to scams is to be more careful from your surrounding. If there are a lot of people offer you about something, like accommodation, donation, or something else, you must know it in details. For instance like the price, how you go there, know it thoroughly. I think this solution is the foremost thing to decide you will accept their offer or not, if you just accept it without any details, maybe you will get their trap if you’re in an unfortunate situation.
ReplyDeleteScam is a problem that already happening a lot in our daily life. Scam is a fraudulent scheme performed by a dishonest individual, group, or company in an attempt obtain money or something else of value. Scam involves tricking people to spend their money. In Indonesia, scam could possibly happen in many ways. One of the most common scam that happens in Indonesia is online scamming and text massage scamming. I could say that mostly everyday there are some random numbers that send me a text message saying that I won a lottery. I believe that most of the people that they text are smart enough and don't trust it since they don't join any lottery. What makes me wondering is, why they keep sending text message to people everyday while no one trust them? Or maybe is it possible that these days there are still people who trust them? This fact is pretty unique because how could you trust this kind of scam since there are a lot of news saying that this kind of text message is a scam.
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