Living in Jakarta (or Indonesia), one must be aware of the countless ways pesky scammers can rob you of your hard earned money.
Sometimes, scammers go to great lengths and effort to fool you into giving them your money. The video above is an example of this, and it’s probably a scheme you’ve heard of before. Luckily, the target was all too aware of what was going on at the beginning and decided to expose the scammers for our enjoyment.
It all began when the target received a text message from the scammer inquiring about an ad he placed for a house for rent on OLX. The target then called the scammer and negotiations for the house ensued over the phone.
When they reached a deal, the scammer said he’d like to wire Rp 5 million for down payment (even though the target said the down payment would only be Rp 2 million) as he was currently in Batam.
Two hours later, the scammer called the target to tell him that he had wired the money. The target said his account balance hadn’t increased, but the scammer was adamant that his balance had decreased by the amount he said he transferred.
The scammer called back (though this time his voice sounded entirely different) and said that he had the bank’s call center on the line as the three parties sought to figure out why the money transfer hadn’t come through.
The call center rep, AKA scammer number 2, asked the target how much money he had in his account. The target lied and said he had around Rp 10 million. Hearing this, the call center rep guided the target to enter some “codes” into the target’s ATM when in fact, he was actually getting the target to wire all of his money to the scammers.
The transaction failed as the target didn’t actually have Rp 10 million in his account. Eventually, the target confessed that he had been playing the scammers all along and that he knew that this was a scam. The scammers immediately hung up.
Two hours later, scammer number 1, or the guy who supposedly made the down payment for the house, called to ask about their supposed deal. The target told him to give it up, at which point the scammer said some nasty things over the phone before he hung up.
You may think that there’s no way you’d fall for such a scheme, especially if it seems obvious that scammers are leading you to wire money to them. But we’ve heard this story many times in Jakarta before, and many times victims admit to not being fully aware of what they were doing, as if they were hypnotized over the phone.
There’s no harm in being extra careful with your money in this scam haven of a city.
