When Indonesian CFD traders are caught, it is an uproar that is not discussed in open circles. Savings vanish, employees will find trades during working hours and worst is the tax office starts inquiring of unreported earnings. There are more than bank accounts that are destroyed in the aftermath.
People often notice unusual withdrawals from joint accounts first. Funds may be moved to investments or loans to friends, sometimes ending up with companies in places like Cyprus or the Seychelles. When confronted, the individual admits to trading but insists any losses will be temporary. In some cases, disputes escalate to legal action or property loss, leaving both parties with significant financial setbacks.
The managers in the business world of Jakarta do not tolerate the practice of CFD trading during working hours. IT departments identify network traffic and log connections onto trading platforms. A company in a large bank fired one of its analysts after realizing that he was trading stock CFDs using his work computer. Lost his job, trading account and his banking career as a permanent occupation. Security escorted out on the same day.
Traders stand scared by the tax implications which they had not thought about. Internet-based trading in CFD gains is considered taxable income in Indonesia. The majority of traders are not reporting anything because they assume that they make losses, and thus, do not pay any taxes. A letter is then sent by Direktorat Jenderal Pajak. They have been sharing data with financial institutions, observed huge withdrawals to foreign ones. All of a sudden traders pay two years old tax gains which they already lost in the market.
Other traders run across illegal investment schemes. They begin by exchanging their own funds, lose it and in turn persuade friends and family to invest their funds on their trading. Guarantee 10% increase a month, new money of investors will settle previous investors. Classic Ponzi scheme. This is when it fails they call the police. One of the traders who invested in Tangerang was imprisoned serving 3 years after losing 5 billion rupiah due to 30 investors.
Indonesian religious leaders began to give warnings on CFD trading within the mosques. In Friday prayers, imams advise congregations against haram speculation where they post the investment as an invite. Traders who believe that they are carrying them on discreetly are informed that all the people in their community are aware of their operations. The embarrassment is even worse than the economic losses in the conservative societies.
When desperation sets in by employees who have financial access to the company funds, the firms lose their money. Bekasi One accounting manager embezzled 2 billion rupiah in his business to recuperate losses in CFDs. Beginning with small capital, intends to make profits. When no profit was gained, stealing took place. At last the auditors took notice. He is a five year inmate at Cipinang prison.
The reputations are destroyed in a lifetime because of social media exposure. Traders are fond of Instagram and Facebook win-postings. As soon as losses occur those screen shots turn into witnesses of their loss. Old friends will tell their stories on how the borrowed money did not come back. WhatsApp chats created with the aim of reporting to authorities about abductors of traders provide photographs and phone numbers. Other traders are unable to secure employment as the employers search their names on Google and locate the warnings.
The banks blacklist CFD traders that default on loans that are taken to trade capital. These defaults are pointed out by Indonesian credit reporting systems. Until seven years cannot get mortgages, even car loans, or even credit cards. There is a Bandung trader who had been staying at his parents place up to the age of 40 years since no bank would accept to loan him a mortgage.
More CFD trading victims can be found in the mental health system. Jakarta psychiatrists report treating severe cases of depression and anxiety that are related to trading losses. Other brokers become paranoid and they believe that some trader had special work against them so that the prices were set to fall on them. Million are spent by the families treating the conditions induced by the addiction to the trading itself through therapy and medication.
The marriage opportunities fade out as families end up finding out the trading history of someone. Indonesian parents do their research on suitable sons-in-law. Locating the lost CFD trading translates to cancellant marriages. Profiles on dating apps in Jakarta contain explicit instructions against forex/CFD traders. The social stigma is the same as one that is associated with addiction to gambling since it is no more than that.
However, hereditary familial firms fail, when the men persuade their fathers to modernize by trading with CFD products. They no longer earn their living by selling textiles or by operating restaurants, but by making quick money with the US tech stocks. There is a single family in Surabaya that lost three generations of prosperity within 6 months. The grandfather constructed the company in a span of over 40 years. The grandson broke through leveraged Tesla trades.
Colleges began throwing out students who sent their fellow students to CFD trading programs. Campus administrations employ it similarly to drug dealing. Students offer their friends money without hassle when it comes to textbook cover. In case of losses, violence prevails. One of the engineering students in UI was beaten up into unconsciousness by his classmates who had suffered the loss of their semester scholarships to his claims of trading signals.
The number of people committing suicide due to trading losses continues to increase but it is not discussed publicly by the officials. There are advances of families with the reference to loss due to CFD, manipulation of brokers, the impossibility to overcome shame. The state is denying that it occurs. The support groups are silent in working and assist the survivors to overcome guilt and trauma. The actual loss of life through online CFD trading is concealed.
Neighborhood RT leaders began giving alerts to the residents on suspicious financial transactions. They have witnessed too many other families ruined by the loss of tie-ups. When one has money, and then lacks it, namely because of something abnormal, everyone can tell that something had taken place. The gossip system within a community is expedited in delivery of information compared to social media. These merchants turn into local warning stories to adolescents.
There are those traders who will resort to crime after their losses. They are desperate to get some money back, and therefore they will do anything. Sale of drugs, theft, fraud and even robbery. Jakarta police authorities apprehended a group of former traders conducting an ATM skimming enterprise. Their capital was required to reinvest into the market. Instead they are giving them 10-year sentences.
The Indonesian government is sometimes conducting raids in illegitimate trading seminars within hotels. Millions of strategies are being sold by organizers that are ineffective. Police probe when people have lost money through them and complain. But organizers say they merely gave education, but not investment guidance. Most get away with it because the criminalized areas have gray areas in a legal context. They only change company names and proceed to operation.
Even the extended families are affected by the shame. At Lebaran meetings, the relatives who are doing well get the relatives who lost everything in trade whispering that all is well. Parents are apologetic of the failures of their children. Siblings isolate themselves to take care of their social statuses. Family ties which cut across generations crash with CFD losses.
It is hard to recover and where so, the recovery process takes years. Ex-traders find it difficult to find jobs due to inability to fill the gap years when they stand in front of charts. Bonds have not been healed up. Trust never returns. Others have been rebuilding at a slow pace, going on with their ordinary works without any touches on anything within the realms of investment. Or others can never make it back, caught in their loops of debts and regrets, threatening those who can never heed until they get arrested as well.