I recently received news of a type of scam I had not heard of before and thought I should tell you about it.
A friend of mine was confronted by two men outside a DVD store in Kuta after buying some DVDs. They presented themselves as police officers, flashed a type of badge for a brief second, and demanded IDR 1 million in cash as a fine for buying pirated DVDs. (And yes, they are illegal to buy).
As my friend is an expat and a longtime resident in Bali, he told them that that was fine and he accepted to pay, but only at the police station and he demanded a receipt with an official stamp. He would be more than happy to follow them to the police station on his motorbike or be escorted in a police car. This took them by surprise and they offered to lower the fine if he could pay in cash on the spot, but he declined. In the end, they gave up and just gave him a warning.
They were obviously not policemen, just cons out for some easy money. I don't know how frequent this happens, but I guess a first-timer to Bali would just pay to get out of trouble.
Moral is: Beware of who you trust, not everyone are who they seem to be.