Shopping scams cost Indonesia $666.6m in 2025

Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) reported that losses from shopping transaction scams in the financial sector have reached 11.1 trillion rupiah (US$666.6 million) so far in 2025.

The most common scams involve fraudulent shopping transactions and fake calls using AI and social engineering, according to Friderica Widyasari Dewi, an OJK executive.

She said these scams also affect highly educated individuals and highlighted a rise in relationship-based scams, aligning with global trends.

OJK data shows 62,999 reports of shopping scams, with average losses of 17 million rupiah (US$1,020) per case.

Fake calls accounted for 38,498 cases and 1.5 trillion rupiah (US$90.1 million) in losses, averaging 36.1 million rupiah (US$2,167) per incident.

Other reported scams include investment fraud with losses of US$84.1 million, job scams with US$42.1 million, prize scams with US$13.5 million, social media scams with US$34.4 million, phishing with US$36.1 million, social engineering with US$23.1 million, fake online loans with US$2.6 million, and WhatsApp APK scams with US$8.23 million.

🔗 Source: Bisnis Tekno

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Shopping scams lead, fake calls cost more

Shopping scams lead with 62,999 cases in Indonesia, yet fake calls cost twice per victim at Rp36.1 million versus Rp17 million for shopping fraud 1.
Fraud rings use AI voice cloning (AI generated speech that mimics a real person) and deepfake impersonation (synthetic audio or video used to pose as someone) 2. OJK, Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority, calls these common as scammers use social media audio to mimic family or colleagues seeking urgent transfers 2.
Indonesia’s 12 hour average reporting delay, against OJK’s 10 minute window, lets criminals move funds across multiple bank accounts 1 3.

Regulators push anti scam steps

Indonesia launched a national anti scam campaign in August 2025 with 21 ministries and institutions 4. Participants include OJK, Bank Indonesia, and the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN) 4.
Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, a major Indonesian telecom operator, runs an AI anti fraud system with the Ministry of Communication and Informatics (Kominfo) 5. It uses NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs with Tanla’s platform (Tanla is a cloud communications provider) to filter messages and calls in real time 5.
Komdigi, the Ministry of Communication and Digital, is drafting a rule to require facial recognition for Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) registration 6. A one year optional transition would come before mandates for new registrations if enacted 6.
West Java, Jakarta, and East Java account for 176,911 of total scam reports 7. Providers and e commerce platforms should upgrade monitoring as OJK steps up oversight through Satgas PASTI (an OJK led task force against illegal online lending) 2.