Airport Shocker Dear Sir In the hope that someone will take an interest, I would like to tell the following story. I arrived at Bali’s airport on Sunday afternoon (Nov. 15) with my lady friend after more than 30 hours of travelling. We were absolutely exhausted. An off-guard man approached me in the luggage hall, asking questions, checking my passport, identifying our suitcases, all in a most official and dominant manner. He was dressed like an official with a kind of “badge” and I took him to be an official officer. He led me through Customs and on to the currency-exchange counter, telling me to change my money. I said I did not want to as I thought I could use US dollars in Bali. He insisted I needed to change my money and I thought it wouldn’t make any difference. Therefore I changed $800 and was given seven piles of Rp100,000 notes and a few loose notes. Just as I was reaching for my money, this man pointed at the desk and said: “Now you put two of those notes here,” pointing at the Rp100,000 (US$10) notes. I said, “What for?” and he said, “You must pay.” At this point he was very aggressive, repeating both commands. Never having seen a banknote with so many zeros, I held two Rp100,000 notes to the currency buyer, asking him how much it was; but he would not answer. I repeated the question several times without getting an answer. Then the “official” person demanding payment suddenly said, and his exact words were, “It’s only a few dollars.” I asked how few and he repeated, irritated: “It’s only few dollars.” Since I wanted to get out of the threatening situation, I gave him the Rp200,000 just to get it over with. But it was not over. Now he pointed at the desk again, even more aggressive, demanding, in his exact words, “And now you give each of them the same,” pointing at porters who had grabbed our luggage. That’s when I realised they all wore the same kind of “badges.” The situation was now even more threatening and I thought the only way out was to pay. It all cost me a total of Rp1.4 million ($140) and was not a nice start to a two-week Bali holiday. I can live with the loss but I would have preferred an honest street robbery. What I find difficult to live with is having been “robbed” by what I felt were officially employed airport personnel. And what’s more important is the question of how many have been or will be “robbed” the same way. It didn’t feel that this was an isolated incident – it was a well-rehearsed act. Yours sincerely Borje Sjoberg Stockholm, Sweden
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 18:33:05 +0000
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