AXIS scam

It has come to my attention now that my family also got hold of this rumor and they're also pretty scared of it. Not so long ago, this is a hot issue back in my home country. Somebody spread a rumor that the new Indonesian cellular network provider, AXIS is a supporter of the satanic church (some other version of the rumor is that AXIS a supporter for terrorist based in Middle East). Not so long, the rumor expands to the Christian community, and the added content is that if you pick up any call from unknown number started with 0866 or 0666 you'll die.

So first thing first, it's a rumor, don't trust it. It's possibly a black campaign directed to the new provider (btw, I'm not in a way or another affiliated with AXIS, except that the employees and me are of the same nationality, hahaha...).

So all of you who wants to protest me, hold your horses. How can I claim that this is a mere rumor? First rule of identifying a rumor, it comes in many flavours, no exception on this one, there's several version of the rumor spreading. And if you need more explanation, allow me to explain with my limited knowledge (boosted with the help of Google and Wikipedia, every student best friends).

• About the affiliation between AXIS and satanic church or terrorist organization. We have no explicit evidence of this is not true, neither we have any that confirm these (at least that's what Google gave me). So any statement made with no explicit evidence to back it up is not valid (as every CSI fans should know). Leave me any link in the comment if you want to oppose this point.
• Now on to the exciting and scary part altogether, pick up a call and you'll die. To elaborate this point, let me give you a background story. Several years ago (I forgot the exact time), there is a lot of battery recall by the electronic manufacturers. This recall is not for granted, they made some production error, in which some of the batteries are punctured or not in a good, sealed cells. This kind of damage is only happens on the Lithium battery (Li-ion and Li-PO/polymer). When a punctured battery is exposed to a certain heat level, it may explode (I'm too lazy to explain the chemical reaction, or rather I'm not able to, hahaha...). And depending on the cells in the battery, the explosion might lead to a chain reaction, bursting each cell with more intensity on each explosion. This thing is -at least in my view- the one who started the whole rumor. There is several occasion that this explosion happens when you use your phone and it builds up heat during your call and eventually the battery explode right in your hand (possibly burning your cheek also), but I haven't heard any fatality (feel free to fill me up on this one). But that possibility is astronomically low nowadays, that issue has been fixed for a few years. Now on to the rumor, you pick up a call and you die. In what way? Explosion? As I explain before, the battery need to be exposed to a certain heat level, so unless you pick up your cell phone after you bake it in an oven, you won't find your cell phone explode right in your cheek. The moral of the story is, don't make a phone call so long that your battery -and your ear- heated up pretty bad (and so does charging).
• The least important rumor for me is the number part, 0866, 0666. Why is the one who start the rumor always use the -so called- devil's number? If you wiki it, designated prefix for cell phone number in Indonesia is only, I repeat only, 08, so 06 is a fake number, big fake if I may add. About the 0866, it's still possible. But then again, the numbers used by Indonesian cellular network provider so far are (according to my knowledge), 082 (AMPS, old time 1G), 081 (most GSM), 083 (GSM, Lippo Telecom and AXIS, the real AXIS), 085 (GSM, Indosat), and 0888 (CDMA, Mobile8). So it's ridiculous to believe that 0866 is a real number used by Indonesian operator. If I may add, don't fear the number, for what you believe is what you should fear.

So there goes my arguments. In conclusion, don't fall for this rumor, it's just some scam, some prank, don't panic. Oh, and here's some extra video I got from YouTube if you want to know how the real battery explosion looked like (but it's a laptop battery). Anyway, credits for this post are from Google and Wikipedia (YouTube too), but since I read those articles a long time ago, I'm too lazy to give the links.