Marketing scam

Marketing scam

Several days ago, I received a message that someone from PT
Vakansi Megah Jakarta had repeatedly tried to get in touch with
me to inform me that I was the lucky winner of a US$2,000
vacation voucher to be spent in Bali or Europe.

I finally had the opportunity to talk on the phone with a Mr.
Samsi on Oct. 26. He confirmed the news of my lucky voucher,
stressing that there would be no second raffle and that they had
to hand over the award to me.

For these reasons, the aforesaid company requested the
presence of myself and my husband at the award presentation
ceremony on Sunday, Oct. 27, 1996. Unfortunately, we could not
attend the occasion.

Two days later, I received a call from a Mr. Joni, also with
PT Vakansi Megah Jakarta, who hoped that we would attend the next
event, which fell on Wednesday evening, Oct. 30, 1996 at the
company's office in Lebak Bulus. Mr. Joni said that the evening
program was made up of a video presentation, dinner and award
presentations. If we failed to turn up at this event, he said,
they would be forced to cancel my award.

We were only half convinced about the holiday voucher, which
was the reason that I contacted them again for further
confirmation. I got the same reassuring reply. Not entirely
convinced that the invitation was on the level, we decided to
attend the evening event.

We were met by Mr. Nelson, who immediately gave a lengthy
explanation about the purpose of the evening function. We asked
him about our voucher, but Mr. Nelson only smiled at us and
offered us a cup of hot tea. After the discussion, our
premonitions came true. PT Vakansi Megah wanted us to become a
member of a holiday club.

Because the function had extended beyond its original schedule
of 90 minutes and it was already past 10 p.m., we decided to go
home. Mr. Nelson employed all his might to make us stay, pleading
with us to meet his manager later. We were then introduced to
another staff member to negotiate member fees, which happens to
run in the millions.

To cut things short and be able to leave quickly, we told them
that we had no plans to become members of the club. We were then
given an envelope, whose cover read: "A special prize for you".
Neither Mr. Nelson nor his manager had mentioned the holiday
voucher as promised. When we arrived home, we opened the envelope
only to find -- to our disappointment -- information about club
membership.

With this experience, I would like to warn other readers about
invitation scams hinting at winning vacation prizes or the like.

Name and address

known to the editor