Miscalculated Promotion: BlackBerry event organiser may face jail

The sale of discounted BlackBerry smart phones turned chaotic when thousands of Indonesians stormed the mall.

JAKARTA: An event organiser involved in a BlackBerry smart phones discount promotion that led to a stampede injuring three people was being held in police custody for suspected negligence, police said Saturday. The sale of discounted BlackBerry smart phones on Friday turned chaotic when thousands of Indonesians stormed the Pacific Place mall in Jakarta in a bid to get their hands on the discounted phones. Indonesia is BlackBerry’s biggest market outside North America. BlackBerry makers Research in Motion (RIM) had announced a week earlier that their new BlackBerry Bold 9790 would be sold half price to the first 1,000 customers. But 5,000 BlackBerry fans gathered in the heat outside the mall for a chance to grab the latest model at the cut-rate price of 2.3 million rupiah ($260). Three people were being treated for injuries, including broken bones and several people had fainted, hospital staff said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2011.