Victims of Hypnosis

Over the past few years in Indonesia, my Mom has heard about a few cases of people being robbed through hypnosis. Mostly they work in a group of two people or alone and they seem to be from abroad since their Indonesian isn't too fluent. They'd approach their victims and try to ask for direction or just chit-chat with them. Their unsuspecting victims then will fall under their gentle hypnosis. Some of them are gently directed to go home and bring back all their jewellery. Some even managed to convince the victims that they could double the amount of money they gave them in just one night. Then the victims, who were already under their influence, would go to the ATM and withdraw as much money as possible and gave it to them. In return, they were given a big package and told to open it the next day. Usually the victims gain consciousness only much later and realized that they'd lost a lot of money. The package was filled with newspaper or some other worthless item.

Some people say that if you feel a stranger approaching and tapping your shoulder, you're supposed to tap the person back so that you won't be under his influence. Most of the victims are women and the hypnotists are men. Some other people say that you shouldn't make direct eye contact too long with a stranger to avoid being a victim of hypnosis.

About a year ago, we heard that my Mom's elder sister became a victim of hypnotists. She lost a great amount of jewellery, but gladly she didn't lose any money from her bank account. Turned out that she was just coming out of the bank when two men approached her and started chit-chatting with her. She said they had a foreign accent and then they were friendly. She didn't recall the exact details of the situation, but she remembered being taken to a car. They drove her around and after some time they said they wanted some apples. They took her to a supermarket and she bought the apples for them. Then they gave her enough money to pay for public transit to go back home and left her.

She said she remembered that they were asking her about ATM, but she said she didn't have any ATM card and she didn't even know how to use one. She said that she went to the bank just to print out her daughter's bank book. So they didn't force her to go to an ATM to withdraw as much money as possible from her bank account. Then and there (at the supermarket) she realized that all her jewellery were gone. Her gold rings, earrings, necklace...all gone!!! She must've been so SHOCKED back then!!! I'm glad that they didn't do anything else to her, though.

Scary, isn't it? My Mom knows this woman who's been such a victim TWICE. Can you believe it? TWICE!!! I don't know how much money she lost, but it must've been quite a big amount. Anybody ever heard of this?