There are many forms of fraud in cyberspace. One of the scams is befalling many car and motorcycle rental business owners in various cities in Indonesia.
The mode of fraud is to 'hijack' car and motorcycle rental pages on Google. The hijacking was carried out with the motive of answering consumer questions regarding vehicle rental by entering a telephone number that is not the phone number of the owner of the vehicle rental business.
Usually, when people are looking for vehicle rental information, they will usually type 'find a car/motorcycle rental in (city name)'. Then Google will display the search results. When users choose a rental, many of them ask for the rental price in the comments column, now this comment column is what the fraudster is after.
This was stated by Yanuar Gajaksahda, Chairperson of Indonesian Motor Rental, when contacted by us. According to Yanuar, this fraudster entered his phone number in the comments section of that page on Google.
As a result, users call the reply number in the comments column, not the official number on the rental page. When prospective tenants are deceived, they will be asked for a down payment (DP) which is paid via bank transfer.
"They will comment as if they are the owner (business page-ed). And give their phone number. Some even change the rental phone number. They have a mode, if you want to rent a motorbike, you have to make a down payment first. Around 100-500 thousand," said Yanuar.
These scammers ask for a down payment of IDR 100,000 to IDR 500,000 if they want to rent a motorbike, which is paid via bank transfer. After paying the down payment, the victim collected the motorbike at the rental place. Of course the original rental owner will be surprised because there is no rental order from their side.
"So we are accused of fraud by consumers (who feel they have paid the down payment)," he complained.
Yanuar also said that this 'piracy' occurred in vehicle rental owners in various cities in Indonesia. "Almost all areas have been hit by gold. Yogyakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Bali. If (rental) on Google Maps, it's all over Indonesia," said Yanuar.
This piracy even goes as far as changing the business owner's phone number stored in Google Ads. According to Yanuar, the number displayed on the page is indeed correct, but when clicked and the phone number goes into the telephone application on the cellphone, the number that appears is different.
"Rental motorbike advertisements on Google Ads, in the telephone number column, if clicked, it will go to the fraudster's telephone number," added Yanuar.
Yanuar admitted that he had reported this case to the police, but according to him this case was difficult to uncover. "We have also made a report to the police. It's just difficult to reveal it," he explained.
So that there are no more victims of fraud, Yanuar advises prospective tenants to reconfirm the vehicle rental number they are contacting, including by double-checking the number by first logging into the website or with a comparison number located elsewhere, for example on social media.
"Please be careful with online fraud modes. Please contact the owner's telephone number on Maps or via social media," he concluded.