Internet scam vs. OFWs

Hundreds of OFWs have been victimized by a syndicate of Internet vultures out to extort money from clueless Filipino migrant workers. Some of our kababayans working abroad have remitted money to fictitious persons with fly-by-night bank accounts. Many have been milked by unscrupulous syndicates that concoct imaginary lucky draws, where victims are supposed to win millions, but that they need to deposit goodwill money to qualify for the prize. Once the money is deposited, the vultures would disappear as quickly as they emerged from nowhere. 

Cellphones, computers and the Internet are very useful technological resources for information and communication. These vultures, however, are using these modern technologies in order to make dirty money. And also because of desire to make quick money, our OFWs fall victim to this nefarious scam.

An indecent proposal

I just received an email from Ms. MKK from such places called Kajonga, Kericho and Burkina Faso in Kenya, West Africa. The sender is allegedly a 23-year-old female, whose rich father supposedly left her US $5.8 million. She alleged that her scheming stepmom and uncle are conspiring to “assassinate” her. She promised to give me 20% of her inherited millions if I’d help her transfer the money to an offshore bank, maybe in Manila or in Cebu. I told her 20% is too much for a simple bank transaction. The Integrated Bar (Cebu City Chapter) of whom I am a lifetime member, would consider it unethical for me to accept it.

If I were greedy and stupid, I would waste my time and resources to entertain such a seemingly tempting offer. But I am not. Hence, I told the girl to go to her Burkina Faso Bank and arrange to transfer her millions to a numbered account in Haiti. Any bank personnel can easily effect the transfer either to Haiti or to a Swiss bank. And I told her if she persists to favor me with such a bounty instead, to donate such 20% or US $1,160,000 (P52,200,000) to BIDLISIW, an NGO of out-of-school youth in B. Rodriguez St., Cebu City, or to BAG-ONG LAMPARA P.O. in Ronda, Cebu. I am the founder of both BIDLISIW (1973) and BAG-ONG LAMPARA (1998). I am sure Ms. MKK will go crazy.

Labor Attaché targeted

As Labor Attaché here in Kuwait, I have been targeted by this scam. Shame on them. I got a call from an unknown vulture who declared that I won 2 million US dollars in a lucky draw conducted by my correspondent bank in Kuwait. I told the caller that I’m not interested to collect my winnings. I instructed him to deposit the amount to Bantay Bata Foundation of ABS-CBN. Then he told me to deposit P25,000 as a goodwill money. I instructed him to deduct the goodwill money from the 2 million dollars. That was the last that I heard from him.

    The trouble with OFWs is that they never learn from a simple scheme of things. If they use their common sense, no one, and I repeat, no one, would win a contest they never joined, in the first place. And no one would go out of his way giving them some jackpot money if they did not invest in it in the first place. In order to avoid these scams, we need to shut our doors from these vultures.

The root of all evil

Money is not the root of all evil. Greed for money is, according to the Good Book. The OFWs fall prey to vultures also because they want to receive money that they didn’t sweat for. The best way to eradicate these scalawags is to shut them off. We should not even give them the comfort of a reply. We should snub them or tell them to go fly a kite.

We should not allow our cellphones, computers and the Internet to become instruments of estafa and dubius extortions. OFWs should strengthen their will not to be tempted by the devils’ schemes and machinations. It takes two to tango, the tempter and the tempted, the vulture and the victim. I refuse to be either. Unta, ang mga OFW dili magpatonto. Aron dili maigo sa gaba.