In Reply to: scams in bali posted by aussie on Sunday, 31. May 2009 at 16:05 Bali Time:
..in August 1998, on my very last day in Bali for that time, I was sheltering under a tree during at errific downpour next to the Pura Puseh in Ubud. I was approached by a very well dressed, very neat-looking young man, and we struck up the usual conversation. When he heard where I was from, his widened in amazement, and he said something, like "What an amazing piece of luck! My younger sister received a grant to study at the University there. Our mother is very nervous about her going abroad on her own. Perhaps you would like to come to our house, and reassure her?? It would be nice if she already had a contact in the place she was going, and perhaps poor mummy would feel better?" I replied that I was still busy with last minute shopping, as I was leaving the next morning, but perhaps I could drop by later? He looked very sad and said that his family lived in Sanur. BUT, he was with some friends who had a car, we could be there in no time, and it would make his mother SO very happy. When I still insisted I wouldn't have the time, he pulled out his wallet and showed me a foto of his sister. WOW and double WOW!!!!!!!. But it was just too impracticle. I gave him my 'phone number and name, and told him to ask his sister to call me when she arrived. He kept insisting that this was no simple coincidence, but there was no way I was going to Sanur at that moment. I never heard from that girl, and about 4 years later I read, on this Forum, of a number of incidents of tourists being driven away under false pretenses, and then forced to empty their bank accounts at the ATMs. Somebody up there must really like me. BTW, the girl on that foto was a genuine knockout. Awas!!!!