A Nasty ‘Win A Car’ Scam That Breaks Hearts

Her eyes are alight and she is suffused with a joy that I have rarely seen before. Her usually stoic nature is transformed by the radiance that today illuminates her spirit, spilling on to those around her. She has worked very hard for years, rarely complaining, and constantly dreams of being able to support her parents on a distant island in the archipelago. Today, that dream has come true.

“I’ve won a car!” she cries, pulling out a plastic token carefully wrapped in flimsy paper printed with complicated winner’s directions. I had heard of those ubiquitous promotional prize deals which seem to abound here in Bali. I had actually seen ads from the Tango people breathlessly pushing the usual line –  you know the ones: “Buy our product, win a car!” But with one car as first prize, its coveted token hidden in one of perhaps five million packets of product, the chances of winning are vanishingly small.

Even so, someone has to win, and it seems that my friend has struck it rich against all the odds. I congratulate her; no-one deserves a win more than her. “But I haven’t told you yet”, she goes on, “It’s not just one, but two cars! I can’t believe it!”

I can’t believe it either, but for me it’s a species of disbelief that comes from cynicism, not overwhelming excitement. As she tells me about finding the Tango car token last night, and another winning one in a separate purchase of a different product this morning, my internal radar begins beeping. She’s on a roll, telling me of her plans to sell one of the little Nissan March cars she has won and giving the proceeds to her parents, and keeping the other here in Bali to generate rental income. My ‘something’s wrong’ detector won’t shut off as I calculate the odds of winning not one, but two major prizes. “Ring them”, I advise, “find out what you have to do now to collect your prize.”

An hour later, I get an excited message. “It’s all real”, she says. “They will deliver the car as soon as I do the registration transfer!” She then diffidently asks if I could lend her 3.7 million “for the STNK transfer”, but assures me that everything is completely safe, because the mysterious ‘they’ will return the money as soon as the car is delivered. “Then I can use that money for the second car’s transfer, and give it back to you when that one is delivered.”

Uh oh. Nigerian scam with a twist. I don’t want to rain all over her parade, but the weather is not looking good right now. I try logic. “Why can’t they pay the ‘transfer’ themselves if they’re only going to give it back to you?” She tells me that they explained that doing it that way would not be legal. Oh, right. But I press on. ”If the car is new, why do they want you to ‘transfer’ the registration?”

She tells me they say it is a police requirement. “Have you called the police to ask?” I enquire. “Of course! They encouraged me to do that!” I am momentarily stumped, but then ask her what number she called. “Oh, it’s right here on their instruction page, where it says ‘Call Police to confirm correct registration transfer fees.” Ah, right, very clever.

So because she’s excited and happy, and wants to hear nothing from the King of Negativity that might spoil that, I make a deal with her. I’ll advance the money, but only if my solicitor talks to her first, examines the deal and approves it. I know her – she is very intelligent, honest, caring and a workaholic – but she is also extremely stubborn and independent. If I refuse her request, she will simply go elsewhere to get the forward payment, then run aground on the deadly Nigerian reefs as so many have done before her.

Luckily, she agrees to meet my solicitor, and I sit sadly watching while that worthy explains the nature of the scam to her, shattering the dream of financial independence for both her and her parents in the process. It is a necessary and brutal surgery, and one that requires a finesse better administered by my solicitor than by me. I listen as she describes how scam artists buy biscuits or confectionery in bulk, then professionally re-pack them using counterfeit bags. The bogus tokens – most of them “winners” – are slipped into the bags before they are sealed, ready for ecstatic purchasers to find and get suckered into pre-paying ‘delivery’, ‘registration’ or ‘transfer’ fees to facilitate a major prize which, of course, never arrives.

Those who are cautious are encouraged to check with the ‘authorities’, whose number is conveniently printed on the accompanying instructions. The number is, of course that of the fraudsters themselves, who explain in official tones that declining to make the requested payment will mean instant forfeiture of the ‘prize’. Very few use their own resources to find and call the customer service number of Tango, or any other company being unwittingly used as a front for these crooks. Very few think to question the “Police’ number printed, because this is Indonesia, where the social norm is never to challenge those in authority.

Most are in borderline economic circumstances, which makes them easy prey for the heartless bastards who care nothing for their victims, thinking only to enrich themselves at the expense of others. They operate with impunity, apparently safe from police interference, and make billions while doing so. Personally, I would cut off their balls and sell their scrotums as tobacco pouches before boiling them in oil. Perhaps it is fortunate that I don’t have any say about the implementation of justice in this country.

At the end of the meeting, after living through 12 hours of sleepless joy and the sudden shock of betrayal, I am worried that my friend will be faced with months of regretful contemplation, the annoying mosquito of  ’what might have been’ buzzing constantly around her mind. But no. She is calm and stoical and simply smiles and says, “Thank you so much. I have learned a big lesson today.”

And after watching how she handled this little episode, so have I.

How to Fix Bali’s Parking Chaos

So there I am, trapped for more than ten long minutes in a huge gridlock in Eat Street, with traffic banked up to Ku De Ta in one direction and Jalan Drupadi in the other. Everyone’s patience is wearing thin, and a cacophony of shrill beeps breaks out every sixty seconds before fading away in helpless despair. When I finally arrive at the source of the blockage, I see an over-sized people-mover parked by the side of the road, directly opposite a construction truck full of gravel on the other side. The remaining traffic lane has been reduced to slightly more than the width of a Suzuki Terimun. Nothing can get through without enormous difficulty.

There is ample room for the van to have been parked ten metres further along, where in fact it could have pulled over closer to the kerb. But no, it has not only has been left in the only spot guaranteed to cause maximum disruption, it has been moronically positioned about half a metre away from the kerb. And not only have its side mirrors been left extended, the steering wheel has been left on full right lock, so that the protruding front wheel now blocks any chance for motorcyclists to squeeze through.

As I finally reach this this incredible example of thoughtless parking, the driver emerges from the Circle K across the road, bearing one small plastic bag containing her ‘shopping’. She imperiously holds up her hand, stopping a car whose driver has waited interminably for the chance to slip past the blockade. No way now. As soon as he stops, a swarm of motorbikes seize the opportunity to get through the gap.  She walks into the stream of moving bikes, causing them to brake suddenly, and pushes past me, rudely knocking my mirror askew. She tries to open her door, which is difficult with the crush of vehicles trying to get past. I’ve stayed relatively patient up to now, but I have reached my limit.

“Excuse me”, I say. She glares at me, her short blonde hair bristling. “Why didn’t you park over there, where you wouldn’t hold up traffic?” Her face screws up in annoyance. “Because I was doing my shopping here, IF you don’t mind”, she says petulantly, as if to a backward child. I do mind, actually. She goes on: “What, you expect me to walk in this heat?” Mmm. Ten metres is tough alright. I open my mouth to continue my carefully reasoned argument, but she snarls an anatomically impossible suggestion at me, gets in the car and drives off, nearly sideswiping a passing car. I suspect that she’s not all that creative, because she spits exactly the same obscenity at the other driver too. Nice lady.

Of course, she is not the only one in Bali who is utterly incapable of seeing the consequences of her parking choices. Locals and expats alike park cars and motorbikes here without any regard for anyone else. I have seen cars parked on blind corners, left at strange angles in parallel parking spots and abandoned parked and locked for hours across lane entrances and driveways. Then there is that nasty little T-junction in Jl. Double Six, where West-bound cars turning left into Jl. Werkudara must swing wide to the right before making the tight left turn. Naturally, every idiot in Bali feels compelled to park in precisely the spot that turning cars need to negotiate the turn. Result? Cars back and fill to make the turn, causing delays and chewing up the cobbled road surface. Chaos. And this parking madness is everywhere you look in Bali.

So what’s the solution? A zoned parking strategy might theoretically work, but not in Bali. Everyone would just ignore it. Parking inspectors? Yeah, right. No, the solution is to make it so embarrassing and inconvenient to park badly that very few would willingly do it. The technique was used on me once and I have never forgotten it.

A long time ago, when I was a callow student at an Australian university, street parking was expensive, limited to one hour, and for a young man in a hurry, simply inconvenient. Within the grounds of the institution was a car park reserved for professors, which I noticed was rarely full. I thought that the “No Parking for Students” sign surely couldn’t mean me, so I parked my little car there and left it for the day. I mean, what harm could it possibly do?

After lectures, I returned to find a very large notice stuck to my windscreen. It first informed me that I was an idiot, then politely rambled on about the inadvisability of ignoring my civic responsibilities. It was exactly in my line of vision when behind the wheel, making it impossible to drive. And when I say, stuck, I mean stuck. Here’s a tip: don’t mess with chemistry professors. The glue was some concoction which had set harder than expoxy resin and could probably have been used to glue planets together. It took a full three hours of scraping and cleaning before I could see enough to drive. I never parked there again.

I propose something similar for Bali. A large sticker saying “THIS CAR APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN PARKED BY A THOUGHTLESS MORON” could be slapped on offending vehicles when they have been stupidly left in a position which causes distress to other road users. Before long, this Adlerian solution would improve traffic flow immensely, without recourse to regulations that would be ignored anyway.

But who would be responsible for sticking these notices on offenders’ cars? Well, maybe we all should. The Bali Times could provide an insert of ten stickers per issue, which would fix the distribution problem. Just be careful how you park your own car while you’re stickering those of others. Someone may be watching.