‘The Court Is A Nightmare. That’s Where I Come In.’

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What happens to motorists who get stopped by the police and refuse to hand over some ‘cigarette money’ to the officer? They either go to the designated district court and pay their official fine to the judge or they seek out the help of a middleman like Wendi, who for a price will save you the hassle of having to wait in line.

The 35-year-old Wendi has been helping people take care of their traffic tickets for more than 10 years. Today, he tells My Jakarta how the system works, where all the middlemen you see standing outside the court come from and his philosophy about taking advantage of clueless customers.

Why did all the other middlemen refuse to be interviewed?

They have their own reasons. Several others were actually OK about being interviewed but their friends advised them against it, warning them that it might cause them problems with their work here.

Can you tell us what it’s like during traffic court here?

Traffic court, where people come to take care of their tickets, is every Friday. Most of the time the courtroom is packed and it takes up to three hours before your name is called. And there’s no air-conditioner so the courtroom gets really hot and everyone is sweating. It’s a nightmare for people who need to get back to their office. And that’s where my service comes in so handy.

How do you speed up the process?

Let me explain by giving you an example. Say your ticket is going to cost you Rp 1,000. If you want to avoid all the hours of waiting, you can go ‘backstage’ without the service of a middleman and negotiate with the court officials yourself and end up paying, say, Rp 1,500 to settle the ticket. For people who are too fainthearted to talk to the court officials themselves, we will negotiate it for you. So you pay Rp 1,500 for them, plus our small fee.

We know and befriend the court officials, but middlemen still pay the full price. We don’t get a cut from the court; we just receive a small service fee from the customer.

How many people can you help on a good Friday?

It depends on the number of tickets being processed. Sometimes the number is so small that I don’t get any customers. On average, I can only help three to four people. This is because there are too many middlemen now. Every Friday, you can see more than 20 middlemen in front of the court offering their services. Ten years ago, when there were only a few of us, we could help up to 10 customers.

One customer will usually give me Rp 10,000 to Rp 15,000 [$1.10 to $1.60] for uang rokok [cigarette money]. But some people may give me Rp 20,000.

Who introduced you to the job?

Some friends, but it’s not that they taught me or anything. They didn’t want the competition. I learned how to do the job by watching them, picking it up bit by bit. After awhile I learned how to do it and was ready to offer my services.

You’ve been doing this for 10 years now. Any plans to find a different job?

I’m not counting on this job. It has no future. I’ve met middlemen at other courts and they will tell you the same thing. Regulations can change, for example, people can pay their tickets directly through a designated state bank, or people will simply ‘make peace’ with the police officer on the spot.

Have you ever been involved in a fight with other middlemen?

I have [laughs]. I once fought with another middleman over a customer. This person was calling me over but the other middleman reached him first and insisted that he should get the customer. It died down after some yelling and a few dirty words, before it got physical.

That’s what usually triggers these kinds of conflicts. That or when one of the two middlemen sharing a customer isn’t honest about the fees.

Do you pay a protection fee, maybe to whoever organizes the middlemen here?

No, we don’t have to pay anything to anyone. We work by ourselves here.

What kind of code of conduct do middlemen have?

Almost all the middlemen here live in this neighborhood, so everyone knows each other and where everyone lives. If there is a middleman who breaks a deal and disappears without returning a customer’s driver’s license or vehicle registration, we will find him and make him talk to the customer. This is because if one middleman cheats, it will give all of us a bad reputation. That’s how we work here, we try to make sure everyone is honest and delivers on their promises.

How do you feel about overcharging clueless customers?

I try to be honest. I tell people how much it will take to negotiate with the officers, and charge them a small service fee. Some middlemen might charge significantly more, but there are consequences.

For me, I believe that you reap what you sow. If you sow bad things, you will reap bad things. If you sow good seeds, you will reap goodness. I also feel sorry for customers who don’t have a lot of money, like students or bus drivers. Sometimes I just tell them to wait their turn to see the judge because it’s cheaper.

Wendi was talking to Denny Firmanto Halim.

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