The dreams of 120 people who wanted to see the cherry blossoms in Japan have seemingly disappeared, as they all apparently fell victim to an online scam.
The suspected scammer, identified as Sarah Jihan, posted an ad for a cheap 6-day tour of Japan in April on the popular internet message board Kaskus. The trip was advertised to include visits to Tokyo, Osaka, and Mount Fuji and only cost Rp 14 million all in.
120 people reportedly registered and paid the suspect, but the trip never materialized.
“Sarah Jihan promised to us that we’d depart on April 5, 2016. However, leading up to the day, she cancelled all of the flights without any good reason,” said victim Ummy Basuki, as quoted by Kompas. She and several other victims reported Sarah to the Jakarta Police today.
The victims said they finally decided to report the scam to the police since Sarah could not be reached after she seemingly disappeared with the victims’ money.
Sarah’s victims said they thought Sarah’s ad looked legitimate since it had testimonies from previous customers.
We managed to track down another one of Sarah’s ads for a trip to Japan in October, and we can’t help but feel that the ad lacks a certain… professional touch. Remember, if something sounds too good to be true, and it’s on the Internet, then it almost certainly is not true.
