Telephone terror: Dealing with phone harassment

By Bruce Emond

JAKARTA (JP): "Joshua" never knows if the phone ringing late at night will be friend or foe.

For the past two years the 31-year-old labor consultant has dealt with a string of nuisance phone calls. The phone rings, only for there to be silence at the end of the line. Usually, the calls are made in pairs or a succession; a couple of times someone has turned up music in the background and, once, a woman murmured "I love you" before slamming down the phone.

He feels pretty confident that he knows whom the caller is -- the younger sister of a coworker. He believes the woman has a crush on him, which is flattering, but the late-night calls are a different matter.

"It's so irritating, and in some ways a bit scary," Joshua said. "It's the feeling that someone is trying to keep tabs on you, even though they are not close to you, and is taking some pleasure in making you feel uncomfortable."

Singer Franky Sahilatua and entertainer-talk show host Indra Safera know the feeling.

During an interview earlier this month on state TV network TVRI's morning show Dua Jam Saja, Franky was asked by a caller if he could have his home phone number.

It was a case of no-can-do.

The singer regretfully but firmly explained that he was once pestered by a caller who made up to 400 calls a day to his home.

Indra has also dealt with his share of nuisance phone calls, which he said tended to happen at night.

"I think that whoever is doing it is pretty childish, but even though it's a little thing, it's threatening," he said.

"Luckily, I have two or three phone lines, so I'll switch to using one of the other ones until the person gets tired of doing the funny calls."

Phone harassment takes different forms, from threatening phone calls, which have been a problem for many public figures in the country,to obscene phone calls almost exclusively directed at women, to the nuisance calls experienced by Joshua.

Psychiatrist Naek L. Tobing said those making the latter type of calls were likely to be acquainted with the person they were harassing, but were unable to express their feelings toward them.

He said nuisance phone callers usually fell into either an obsessive or childish personality. The latter, he added, was likely to lose interest if there was no reaction to their games, but it was more difficult with people with obsessive personalities.

"They feel more of a need to contact the people, and they are not as likely to give up quickly. They are obsessed with the person at the end of the line."

Naek, who said his office also experienced problems with nuisance callers over the years, advised the best action was to play it cool.

"Just put the phone down. If you give them any kind of reception, you're unintentionally encouraging them to do it again."

Caller ID

Domestic telecommunications provider Telkom advises people dealing with harassing phone calls to install Caller ID, the service which shows incoming call numbers.

The problem is that the service is still only available in limited areas in the capital according to designated number prefixes.

For instance, Caller ID can be installed in areas in Central Jakarta such as Palmerah, with the prefix numbers 534, 535, 5367, 548 and 549, but may not be available in surrounding locations.

Likewise, it is available in certain but not all areas of Semanggi in Central Jakarta (it can be used for numbers beginning 570 and 571), Slipi and Kota in West Jakarta, Cipete in South Jakarta and Sunter, Ancol and Pluit in North Jakarta.

"Our advice to people in areas where Caller ID is not yet available is to contact the police, because this is a criminal offense," said Telkom's assistant public relations manager Edi Satriyono.

He said the service cost about Rp 50,000 for the activation fee, plus a monthly service charge of about Rp 10,000.

"Retno" thought using Caller ID was the solution to her problems after she and her sister were harassed by a male caller.

"He would always call late at night, and say the same things about knowing who we were, where we worked, so why didn't we just talk to him," the 25-year-old reporter said.

"It was particularly disturbing because we wondered what kind of things he would say if our father picked up the phone."

She said she talked personally to a police officer, who told her the most efficient way to stop the calls was to use Caller ID. She bought a phone which could be used for the service -- only to find out that her home in Gunung Sahari, Central Jakarta, was not part of the coverage areas.

Still, when it is in service, Caller ID may be able to cut down on some of the problems of harassing phone calls, if only be identifying the perpetrator and shaming them into stopping their action.

Occasionally, it leads to arrest and prosecution.

The head of the West Java legislature, Eka Santosa, picked up the phone at his home in Bandung late at night on Jan. 24 and heard the caller tell him his house would be blown up.

But the caller, a student activist who once invited Eka to a seminar at his campus, did not know the phone was equipped with Caller ID. Within hours, he was arrested and is currently in police custody. Although the man and his family have expressed regret over the incident, the official has pledged to pursue the case.