Fake purchase orders and forged letters target SMEs as digital scams rise

Digital document-based fraud is increasingly widespread, prompting calls for stronger digital literacy and broader use of certified electronic signatures. Forged purchase orders (POs), fake government-style letters, and manipulated transaction documents are being reported more frequently, causing losses—particularly among small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Privy CEO and founder Marshall Pribadi said electronic transactions are essentially legal acts that create rights and obligations. The biggest challenge, he added, is ensuring the identity of the parties involved and the integrity of the documents can genuinely be trusted.

Marshall noted that although the Electronic Information and Transactions Law (UU ITE) has regulated the use of electronic certificates since 2008, digital fraud remains rampant. Throughout 2025, authorities recorded an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 reports related to digital scams.

“That means, in my view, we still haven’t succeeded in delivering a reliable guarantee of trust in electronic transactions. Why? Because so many people are still falling victim to digital fraud,” Marshall said at a press conference in South Jakarta on Thursday (Feb. 12).

He pointed to cases that have targeted SME operators, including satay sellers and catering businesses that received counterfeit purchase orders using official-looking institutional letterheads. The documents appeared convincing, but the victims suffered losses because the orders were never real.

“In the digital world, we can’t tell whether a letter is genuine or fake just from how it looks,” Marshall stressed.

Against that backdrop, Privy has launched a national campaign titled “Cek Dulu Baru Percaya” (Check Before You Trust).

The campaign urges the public to stop judging a document’s authenticity based solely on visual appearance and to build the habit of verifying documents before making decisions—especially those involving transactions and money transfers.

As an electronic certification provider licensed by the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi), Privy says it guarantees two main elements: the signer’s identity and the document’s integrity.

Each electronic certificate it issues comes with a certificate guarantee of up to $\text{Rp }1\text{ billion}$, which must be paid out if verification negligence is proven and results in losses.

“When it is proven that a party relying on that signature suffers losses because the identity was not correct, then Privy must pay those losses up to 1 billion rupiah,” Marshall said.

Komdigi’s Director of Supervision for Electronic Certification and Electronic Transactions, Teguh Arifiyadi, added that wet signatures and scanned signatures do not provide adequate evidentiary strength because they can be easily denied. Certified digital signing, he said, is designed to close that gap.

“A scanned signature that’s cropped and pasted into a PDF is worth zero, because you can’t confirm the document’s integrity or who actually signed it,” Teguh said.

According to Teguh, documents signed with certified electronic signatures carry a legal standing comparable to an authentic deed. In disputes, courts no longer focus on visual authenticity, but instead seek an official explanation from the electronic certification provider.

He also emphasized that electronic certificates include timestamps and long-term validation (LTV) technology, allowing a document’s validity to remain verifiable even if a dispute arises years later.

Teguh acknowledged that digital signature adoption in Indonesia remains concentrated in Jakarta, while usage in other regions is still limited. For that reason, he said, campaigns like this are important to expand literacy and promote more even adoption of electronic certificates nationwide.

“The belief that digital signatures are expensive is a hoax. They’re very cheap and as easy as using WhatsApp,” Teguh said.

Indonesianpost.com | CNNIndonesia