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.

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