In Reply to: didn't get that far posted by dazza_a on Tuesday, 21. June 2005 at 15:00 Bali Time:
But even if you'd gone with her, you wouldn't have been taken in by the scam because you would have refused to help them rip someone off, surely?
Would they have then threatened you with violence? I doubt it. They don't want the police involved. That's why they set it up with the sucker as culpable as them. You can't very well go to the police and say, "I was trying to con someone and got conned".
It is a shame you have had bad things happen, though. I've been ripped off in a few small ways, too -- almost always around Kuta, which is why I enjoy the rest of the island/country a lot more. I always laugh in the Circle K's when my change comes back 1000 short. I just leave it on the counter and laugh for a few seconds. Just to let them know I know. I let them keep it, though.
It doesn't happen anywhere near as much on the rest of Bali, and almost never in Java. Out of the dozens of times I've given a kid a 10,000 or 20,000rp note and asked him to find me a copy of the Jakarta post, only once has he never come back.
I was invited to join in a gambling game once when I was exploring the gangs of Yogya. It looked like a cross between Mah-jong and dominoes. I declined because I didn't know how to play, I didn't want to lose any money, and I would have felt bad if I won. Also, the man who ran the gambling also ran a brothel (which I was also invited to sample), and I didn't want to support that.
The problem is that while it's only a small percentage of Indonesians who are out to rip you off, they are the ones you will most likely meet, because they are proactive in finding you. It takes a little while, but if you can choose who you deal with and politely ignore those who seem too keen to deal with you, you'll have very few problems. Most Indonesians are exceptionally friendly and happy that you came to visit their country, and they want you to go home happy so that you come back.