A Better Title

Dear Diary,

A phone call woke me up on Tuesday morning.

The vibration from my handphone aroused me from my slumber.

I struggled against the glue on my eyes.

The numbers on the screen of the then-blinking Nokia 3530 came into focus. It was from a number originated in Jakarta.

I glanced at the wall clock. It said it was half past eleven.

I wondered who would be calling me at such a time.

I cleared my throat and muttered a syllable. I had to test my voice for croakiness. I don’t like whoever is talking to me on the phone to know that I just woke up. Not even my friends.

I was sure that my voice wasn’t croaky, so I pressed the green “Accept Call” button.

“Halo” Hello, I said.

“Halo, selamat siang!” Hello, good day! A sweet voice replied from the other end.

“Siang…” Good day… Hmmm… The voice doesn’t sound familiar.

“Dengan Bapak Hendri Budi?” (Am I speaking) with Mr. Hendri Budi? Wow, she knows me.

“Iya, betul.” Yes, correct. I wonder who she is…

“Kami dari Lion Air. Anda memenangkan Rp. 10 juta.” We’re from Lion Air. You just won 10 million rupiah.

Now that was the way to start a new day. (And hey, it rhymes) The first few hours of my day was spent sending the original used ticket and a copy of my identification card for verification. The next few hours was spent searching the Internet for some kind of confirmation that it was a legitimate call from Lion Air, and not some scammer trying to fish me into giving them some money (allegedly for the prize tax) for nothing.

Which is why I didn’t post this earlier. I was still not 100% sure that the call was really from Lion Air. You see there’s this tax in Indonesia called prize tax (pajak hadiah) which requires the winner of a lucky draw like this to pay 25% of the value of the prize.

So let’s take a look at my case. I won 10 million rupiah. 25% of this would be 2.5 million rupiah. So that leaves 7.5 million rupiah into my pocket. This is okay because the money was deducted straight away from the value of the prize.

Now let’s take a look at another case. Someone won a BMW worth 100 million rupiah. The winner has to pay 25% prize tax (that is 25 million rupiah) before he can claim the prize. So it’s almost the same as buying the prize with a 75% discount–and some fame if you’re lucky enough.

So what is done by some scammers is that the scammer calls the winner, and asks him or her to send the money (allegedly for prize tax) to the scammer’s bank account. Then the scammer flees the scene. The scammer gets some money, and the winner has to spend even more money to claim his prize.

So let’s get back to the topic. That was why I didn’t post this earlier. I think many people will laugh if I had posted something this long, only to edit it a few days later by striking through the whole thing and adding a line: I’ve been scammed.

The fact that the address to which I was supposed to send the ticket and my identification card is the same as one of Lion Air offices somewhat convinced me that it was indeed legitimate. Also, a neighbour asked our family if it was true that I won the lucky draw. He said he saw the drawing (is it called drawing?) on TV. It’s a pity that my family and I didn’t watch the drawing (which was actually broadcast live) otherwise we would not have to go over the trouble of confirming the legitimacy of the call.

Wow… Anyway, the amount of money is quite a lot. It was more surprising because that was also the first time ever I participated in the Lion Air lucky draw. The first thought of how I was going to spend the money was: ‘Yes! I can buy a new computer to get my Flight Simulator and 3D rendering running smoothly!’

But a little while later I realised that it’s not that easy for my parents to fund me to continue my studies in Singapore (even with the scholarships, knowing how my lifestyle is like) so I thought the money would be better put into my savings account in Singapore.

So Lion Air… This is for you, with a bold, red-coloured type, just as what you like: Thank you Lion Air!

Happy,

bcc

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2004 at 12:38 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.