Photo Credits: Your Kid’s Identity Is at Risk
I’m sure, all of you out there who has an email account, must have been bombarded already with a lot of emails na mayaman ka na dahil natigok ang tyuhin mong di mo kilala who left a billion dollars in an offshore account. There has been a lot of iterations of these bloody emails already. These emails started sa Nigeria, andyan yung naging Korean na sya, naging Chinese, then naging Hungarian – remember all these .ru emails? In fact, naka-receive pa ako na naging Pinay sya.
Well, today, magaling ang ginawa nang isang Pinay. And I can’t help re-posting this news I just read today. Instant reaction ko? Uragon ang babaeng to! Uragon meaning, uber galing that she deserves the Nobel Peace Prize ora mismo as in, now na! What she did is really something that we should all emulate para mawala ang mga lecheng salot na to sa barrio sosyedad. Mga mandurukot in another way and will truly ruin you financially.
This was the story on the Inquirer. Pinay’s tenacity leads to credit card thief’s arrest, reported by Jeannette Andrade.
MANILA, Philippines–The tenacity of the Filipino wife of an American judge led to the arrest of a Nigerian national accused of credit card fraud and identity theft.
Benson Umeh, 47, a Nigerian and a resident of Diliman, Quezon City, was arrested on Oct. 7 by National Bureau of Investigation Agents in a mall in Manila with the help of Editha Fones.
Fones, who is married to James Fones, a retired judge from Oklahoma, told the Inquirer that she befriended Umes in an attempt to get him to agree to meet her.
Before that, she said that she and her husband found out that someone had charged more than $18,000 to his credit card.
She added that she decided to go to all the 19 stores where the transactions which were charged to her husband’s credit card were carried out.
In each store, she was told that the purchases were made by a black man in his 40s who showed as proof of his identification a driver’s license issued by authorities in California.
In one of the stores she went to, Editha said she got a copy of a receipt which listed the cardholder’s cell phone number.
On Oct. 3, she called up the number and started befriending the English-speaking man at the other end of the line.
“He told me his name was John but he would not give me his last name. I then convinced him that we should set up an ‘eyeball’ (face-to-face meeting). He agreed,” Editha said.
She then sought the help of agents of the NBI Anti-Fraud and Computer Crimes Division (AFCCD).
When agents finally arrested Umeh, he confessed to using James’ credit card but refused to say how he got hold of it or the fake driver’s license.
At a press conference on Monday, Umeh, who has been in the country since 1993, said he bought the credit card and driver’s license for $300 from a Filipino named “Lopez.” He, however, did not specify how he and Lopez met.
NBI Director Nestor Mantaring pointed out that the card used by Umeh was a replacement for Fones’ expired card. The bureau is still investigating how he came by the card as well as the driver’s license.
“The card may have been intercepted while in transit,” Mantaring stressed, adding that agents of the AFCCD were conducting follow-up operations against Umeh’s accomplices.
James, meanwhile, said that the only people hurt by the fraud was the credit card company which shouldered all the expenses. “He (Umeh) comes from a country that is very, very poor and where crimes like this abound. I hold no malice against [him] but I think there is a lot more going on. He even called my bank and convinced the bank that it was me calling. Someone did a lot of background work. There are more people involved,” he told reporters as he praised his wife for all the work she did.
“I could never find a better wife than her. She is the best wife any man could ever have,” he said.
To Editha Fones, sana dumami ka pa!
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Sa dami ng email scams, minsan di na ma discern kung ilan ba ang totoo, maging maingat tayo. Lalo na sa mga nagpapamudmod ng pera na out of the blue. What gives, nothing in life is for free.
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people are getting smarter every day. sa hirap ba naman nang buhay u never know what’s the new trick. or minsan i-ti-tweak lang ang old tricks
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Since nabuhay si Benson Umeh sa pang ba-bluff, hindi na tuloy nia alam yung difference between real and fake sa kinikilos ng environment nia. Ayan na bluff din cia tuloy ni Editha Fones.
nice work Editha
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Well done!!!
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Dapat lang sa mga taong ganyan pabalikin sa bundok kung saan sya galing lahi nang mga unggoy hindi na lang mag trabaho nang patas at tuloy ibitay nang patiwarik! para matutu talaga wag na mag hintay pa ang authoridad matagal na yan sa pinas palayasin na agad sa bansa, ako nga eh halos linggo2x nanalo sa lottery kaya nga sini shit! ko ang nagpapadala sa akin kasi san ka ba naman nanalo ka na wala kang taya kundi mga tanga na lang ang maniwala talaga.
Saludo ako sa magasawang yan dapat ibalita sa lahat at maging leksyon sa lahat lalo na credit card yan ikaw magbabayad iba ang makikinabang ano sila bali dapat lang kabayan.
At sa mga banko naman natin mahigpit pag pinoy maluwag pag ibang lahi di nila alm maraming dayuhan ang mahirap pa sa daga ang pinay naman nagkakandarapa para habulin sila di nila alam ginagamit lang lalo na gustong maging pinoy na dayuhan karamihan mga stream pa.
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Oi galing naman nia. Sabagay, kung ako man eh madenggoyan ng $18,000, hinding-hindi ko rin palalampasin ang may gawa nun.
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May nakascam sa akin ng $10,500 which was used to fix a car in Windsor Ontario whereas I live in Calgary AB. I never lost my card so I don’t know how they got my credit card number. Only thing I remeber is that I was involved in an accident and before they gave me a loaner, I had to show my credit card as proof. Afterwards, there was that $10500 on my account. Visa honored my refusal to pay but I had to write an affidavit as well had to give an interview to the forensic accountant. What a lot of hassle. I now have a credit card with very low credit limit that I use for these purposes and every once in a while I ask for a replacement. I have a friend who everytime she comes back from vacation, asks for a replacement card so she can not be defrauded. Also I learned to check the entries at hindi na lang bayad ng bayad.
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Rosa, may friend ako nag-honeymoon sa Hawaii, tapos nanakawan sila sa kotse habang nag swimming sa beach. Tapos na Identity theft, that was 15 years ago, hanggang ngayon may mga credit card at bank accounts pa ring tumatawag sa kanya…
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