Insight

SCAMMED: My good intentions turning into bad results

I fell prey to a scammer last Monday, March 23, 2009. I wanted to buy a used iphone over ebay.ph and I saw this one i particularly wanted.

This is not my first time in internet purchasing. But i let my excitement rule over this particular day. I was reflecting the whole week whether or not I would share this experience with you.

Setting aside my bruised ego. I decided I would.

Actually there are two of us from the JCI movement that fell prey to this person last Monday.

My scammer’s name is Dennison Reyes Chan. This is the name he bears on his fake license. He also goes by the name of Richard Reyes Chua. He posts items for sale in ebay.ph and sulit.com.ph

Both these persons exist in real life. But the license details are different from the one posted here.

Here is his bogus license:
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The usual conversations in online bids is that if you like the product, you would normally contact the seller using the number he leaves on his featured item in any of the online sites. If you come into an agreement, you would then arrange for the exchange.

You either meet face to face to exchange or use an intermediary like GCash or a bank for deposits. He does his share by sending the parcel to your preferred address. Online purchases have worked this way since. It is a trusting community. But not everyone is on the same page.

Here is the modus he used on me and the others he has scammed:

He posts an item up in ebay.ph, says that the item is in Baguio, and leaves a number. In the case of the Iphone that was put up for bid, the claim was that he has three bought from the US and he is selling one.
You send him a text message and he replies. In the case of last Sunday, he said that he came from Church with his family.

He will pretend to be a father and asks his daughter whose names go by Crystal Chan and Dianne Chan to send you an email with attached pictures of your desired unit, a business permit of a hardware store in Baguio called Pine Hardware, and a picture of a driver’s license.

He also leaves an account number for you to deposit the payment to. He asks you to fax the deposit slip to a number in Baguio or wherever he says he is based.
He promises to send the item via parcel as soon as he confirms your bank deposit. The coup de grace is for you to confirm the deposit by emailing or faxing it to him. The bank will never reveal his data because there’s bank secrecy.

He will speak good english to make him sound more credible. He will stop talking to you as soon as the deposit is made.
He withdraws the listing from ebay.ph or the online portal he posts in. The moment you agree on a price, the price on the item changes. That way, you will never be the winner. In the case of ebay, it will only entertain winning bidders.

Here is his bogus business permit:

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His Email Template:

Hi po Mennen!

Here are some more images of the iPhone my dad asked me to email u…. and attached are his IDs too.  Hope this will be helpful…

The total price of your iPhone is P24,000.00 shipping is included. Just email me here if ever you have some technical questions when you recieve the iPhone. Otherwise, everything’s in the manual anyway. Hope you’ll really enjoy it! =) We will have it sent to your address via Air21, it’s door to door, it’s just 1-2 days delivery. I have restored the settings too, so expect it to be in full factory trim, everything’s complete and intact, it’s openline already, firmware is updated to latest 2.2.1, you may install applications from iTunes, all accessories and packaging are complete.

It’s ready to use..

You may confirm the serial number of your iPhone for your warranty… here’s apple’s support website.

https://selfsolve.apple.com/GetWarranty.do

88831G471R4    –    Other Countries  -  Philippines

Here are my dad’s account details: You may make payment at Allied Bank, Sucat, Savings 1620-12618-5 Dennison R. Chan/Pine House Hardware, Benguet pls. Fax the deposit slip to our office to (074)4423638 or email it here if a fax machine is not available. Dad will have it shipped to your address that same day, you’ll receive it the morning the following day or two.

Please text my dad your mailing address and complete name so my mum can prepare the package tonight. Good day po!

Hope you will really enjoy it! =)

Some of the pictures he sent included details of the supposed unit he was to deliver to me.
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So there goes the scam. In the end, it is still caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.
Our Text conversations:

Will there be hope of getting justice here? Perhaps. But if ever it does, it will not come fast. It will probably take a long time considering that that there are stonewalls being put up by the organizations the scammer has used to perpetuate his crime.

What are my lessons here? How can JCI members help? Here are my suggestions:

If ever you want to bid, please ask a fellow JCI member in your area to verify whether the data anyone provides is true.

I’d like to say buy from trusted sites. Ebay is a trusted site. But you can’t trust all the players who study the technicalities very well.

Save up and buy brand new. Most of the time, online bidding works. But you also have people wanting to beat the system. Will I still trust the system? Yes I will. But take all precaution to enforce your end of the bargain. Insist on a meet-up and item-money exchange instead of parcel deliveries. be wary also of moving money by cell phones.

Please spread this document around to as many people as possible.

To my scammer, I read in an article that talks about the difference between companies that excel and companies that tumbled over.

You know what the difference is?

The excellent companies always considered the consequences to other party whenever they decided or acted.

The companies that failed only thought about themselves.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Business, Junior Chamber Blogs, Social Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.