Your Legal Rights
Your rights, and who has to listen
Indonesian consumer law is more protective than most tenants realise, and the enforcement bodies are free to approach. The obstacle is almost never the law — it is that most people never find out these routes exist.
The law that applies
Law No. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection (Undang-Undang Perlindungan Konsumen) governs this relationship. It gives consumers the right to accurate and honest information about a service, the right to have complaints heard and resolved, the right to compensation where a service does not match what was agreed, and the right to advocacy and legal protection. A rental platform holding a deposit is a business actor under this law, with obligations that follow from it.
Where to take a complaint
- BPKN — Badan Perlindungan Konsumen Nasional
- Files your complaint into a government record. That record outlives whatever Travelio does or does not reply to you.
- BPSK — Badan Penyelesaian Sengketa Konsumen
- Where a deposit dispute stops being a customer-service ticket and becomes a case. Its decisions bind. Most tenants never learn it exists, which suits the companies they are up against.
- YLKI — Yayasan Lembaga Konsumen Indonesia
- Independent, and loud. YLKI has the press contacts an individual complainant does not.
- LAPOR! — lapor.go.id
- The national public complaint portal, routing complaints to the responsible ministry or agency and tracking the response. Free, online, and it produces a reference number.
- MediaKonsumen
- Where Indonesian consumers go when a company stops answering. Travelio has replied publicly there twice — both times after the complaint went up, never before.
If you are a foreign resident
Consumer protection law in Indonesia applies to you regardless of nationality or visa status, and BPSK does not require Indonesian citizenship. Two practical points: keep your correspondence in Bahasa Indonesia where you can, as it moves faster and removes an easy excuse for delay, and be aware that a deposit denominated in rupiah but paid from a foreign account is exactly the situation in which the name-mismatch objection has been raised. Document the payment route at the time you pay it.