Scammer ka lang...Scammer din kami!

Date: October 28, 2021

Note: This article have tagalog words. I have decided to used my mother tongue which is tagalog on some part of this article so that I could be able to express my thoughts gracefully.

Hello my fellow readers and writers!. Today is my kind-of busy day but still manageable as usual. Hindi nga lang nakapaglaba si Inday dahil busy sa work din talaga maghapon.

I've got an idea to write about my scammer experience by the post from @Ligaya19 entitled "What to do if you've been the victim of a scam" . Her article reminds me of what my husband and I did when we've been a scammer victim last year.

It was May last year when my husband and I have to go to my OB-Gynecologist's clinic in Muntinlupa City for my another dose of contraceptives. I tend to use injectables before because I am really have a very poor memory. I tend to forget things even though I just did it like few hours ago or so. That's my fear hence I decided to go with injectable contraceptive rather than oral pills.

I asked my husband to accompany me because it is ECQ that time and as you are aware of, travel in or out of Manila and nearby provinces are restricted. Only allowed to cross are those who are considered to be as "Essential Workers".

My husband has some papers that will prove him as one of the "Essential Workers". He has DTI permit for his "Bigasan" business and hence we used it to pass through different checkpoints positioned in the border of each city and border of Muntinlupa and Cavite.

I have my cousin and our helper (yes we still have helper during that time) left with the kids at home. I have left expressed breastmilk in the ref for my son who is exclusively drinking breastmilk during that time. He was just 2 years old by then.

While we're on our way to my OB-Gynecologist's clinic, I posted a picture in "My Day" of me and my husband inside the car with a caption of....." "

oooopppsss!!! I already forgotten what my exact caption is but it's about my husband and I escaped from our kids for a short period of time.

I am not sure if it just happened coincidentally but somebody contacted our telephone and home. My cousin picked it up and entertained the person on the other line.

Note: Some wordings in the below conversation is not the exact words used by my cousin and the caller. But the thoughts are somehow similar.

Caller: Hi, pwede ba malaman kung nandyan si Miss xxxxxx?

Cousin: Ay wala po, umalis po sila.

Caller: Ay ganun ba? Kasi ganito, naaksidente silang mag-asawa. Nakabangga yung sinasakyan nilang sasakyan. Nasa prisinto ngayon yung asawa nya at kailangan ng cash para pangbayad. May pera kaba dyan? Si ate mo, iyak na din ng iyak.

Cousin: Ay ganun po ba? Wala po kasi akong pera dito.

My cousin initially refused to give money to the caller. But then the caller is very persuasive!. To the point that my cousin gave up!. She sent her allowance sent to her by her OFW mom few weeks ago. Since she doesn't have GCASH account, she look for 7-11 store and deposited her allowance to the GCASH number that the scammer has provided.

When she got home, the scammer called again and forced my cousin to check our cabinets for wallets or any jewelries and asked my cousin to meet-up and give them the jewelries if found any.

Pwede po pakausap kay Ate? My cousin asked the caller.

Ay naku nashock kasi sya sa pangyayari, iyak din ng iyak, hindi sya halos makausap. As per the caller.

And the caller continued to pursuade my cousin to look for wallets, money, etc.

My cousin gave up again!. And asked our helper if she has some money. Our helper then lend her only money in her pocket (2.000 PHP). My cousin went back to 7-11 again and sent the money in to the same GCASH number.

When she comes back, the scammer contacted her again. In this case, they contacted her from her mobile number. They still asked for more!.

Then my cousin remembered my "alkansya" (piggy bank) which has like around 5,000PHP. She knew about it because sometimes I ask her to get money from there if we have something to buy from the store. In other words, she took all those money from my piggy back and send them to the same GCASH number via 7-11.

When my husband and I arrived at home, my cousin is in total shock!. First thing that came out from her was "Kuya okay lang kayo?". And then she cried when she realized that nothing bad has actually happened to us. He then told us what has happened. We tried to contact the number (GCASH) but it's no longer reachable. We lost our hope that we will get back our money which worth 10,000 PHP in total.

I then thought of posting that incident in FB to give awareness to my friends.

And that's the best action I did ever that night!. One of my former colleague (who is currently an IT in GCASH) sent me a direct message in my messenger. He helped me trace that number. He was able to track the transactions made from that GCASH number. The money was actually transferred into multiple GCASH accounts and one of them has been traced to have a GCASH ATM. We contacted the multiple GCASH accounts used, each one of them.

My husband pretended as an officer from Cyber Crime Division and pretending that he is able to track even the address of the scammer. Which is actually true because we are able to retrieve his ID card details with the help of my former colleague.

The person (he's just actually a young boy by his looks on his ID picture) which is an STI student immediately returned the 5,600 PHP that he said was left into his account. My husband then named the other GCASH holders into which he has transferred the remaining amount. There are total of three GCASH numbers that we are able to retrieve. At first, he is in denial. He told my husband that he don't know those other two people that we named to be his "kasabwat". The other one is a girl by the way.

My husband texted the other one and here is how their conversation goes.

The other scammer is consistently denying the incident! While the girl's number is unreachable.

So now you have an idea how my husband pretended to be a member of cyber crime division.

Since that person is in denial, my husband focused his attention to the STI student who initially admitted the crime that he did.

My husband threatened the STI student that he will go into his address early morning the next day with the NBI if he don't send us back the remaining 5,000 PHP which are evenly distributed to the other two GCASH accounts.

To cut the story short, we are able to retrieve all our money from the scammer. The STI student even apologize again and again :)..

That concludes our scamming experience :)...

Sana ay naaliw kayo sa kwento at natuto kayo ng mga diskarte para matakot ang scammer sa inyo..hahaha..

Thank you so much for your time readung!. See you around!