Facebook scam targets Indonesians with billion-dollar 'relief fund'
- Published on September 24, 2024 at 06:07
- 3 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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"BPJS Indonesia provides a relief fund in 2024 amounting to 25 trillion rupiah ($1.6 billion)!!!” read a Facebook post in Indonesian shared on September 10.
"The recipients of assistance funds are limited to only 10 people per province and each of them will receive 125 million rupiah ($8,200)."
The post asked Facebook users to leave a comment to enquire about the offer and was signed from "Prof. Drs. Muh Bakrie" from "BPJS Kesehatan Main Services".
It shows a video featuring a still image of two men shaking hands while holding what appears to be a cardboard cheque for 125 million rupiah, with BPJS Kesehatan's logo in the corner.
A man narrating the video urges Indonesians to "contact us immediately" to receive the "special aid".
The post was shared by an unverified Facebook account called "BPJS", which features BPJS Kesehatan’s logo as its profile picture.
Dozens of similar Facebook accounts sprung up, including here and here, touting the purported cash fund.
The posts attracted hundreds of comments, including from Facebook users who urged the agency to "please help" or said they "really need the money to pay my debts".
However, the assistance programme does not exist and the video of a man receiving a cardboard cheque is not related to BPJS Kesehatan.
'Hoax'
BPJS Kesehatan spokesman Rizzky Anugerah said the Facebook posts were a "hoax and a scam."
"There is no aid and programme like that," he told AFP on September 19.
He confirmed there was no "Prof. Drs. Muh Bakrie” working at the agency and that "no directors, board members or any BPJS Kesehatan employees" were seen in the image shared by the false posts.
Meanwhile, BPJS Kesehatan’s official Facebook page bore several differences to ones promoting the non-existence cash giveaway (archived link).
The official page was created in 2013 and has more than 350,00 followers, while the impostor accounts were created more recently and generally have a handful of followers.
Below is a screenshot comparison between an impostor account created in September (left) and the official one (right):
Scam Facebook pages promote fake giveaways to boost followers and reach. The goal is typically to sell the page once it has enough followers.
The scammers may also mine people’s data, including names, phone numbers, email addresses and other personal information.
AFP has previously fact-checked various fake cash giveaways in Indonesia, including a "lucky draw" pushed by pages impersonating a bank that had the hallmarks of a phishing scam.
Edited cheque photo
A reverse image search on Google found the image in scam posts was published in various news reports from July 5, 2023 including from Viva.co.id, Republika and Tribunnews (archived here, here and here).
The articles covered joint efforts by the state-owned postal service PT Pos Indonesia and the Workers' Social Security Agency (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan) to improve social protection coverage among informal workers.
The photo does not feature BPJS Kesehatan's logo, while cardboard cheque is for 9,641,138,820 rupiah ($635,000) -- which refers to the total claims awarded to said workers.
Below is the screenshot comparison of the edited image shared on Facebook (left) and the original photo (right):
Budi Hananto, assistant deputy for communications at BPJS Ketenagakerjaan confirmed to AFP that the photo showed their official event in July 2023.
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