One month ago, a foreigner asked people on the internet for advice about a girl he met online and planned to visit in the Philippines. The feedback he received made him change his mind and saved him from getting scammed or worse.
The original post published one month ago
Around a month ago we ran a story about a foreigner asking the Internet for advice about a girl he met online and was thinking of meeting in her hometown in Mindanao. At the time he had only spoken to her online and it didn’t take netizens long to see red flags and alarm bells all over his story, causing the thread on Reddit to explode in a flurry of replies and comments. Some people told him to be careful and that the story doesn’t add up, while others were concerned for his life and advised him not to travel at all.
Hello there, I’m not going to waste time summarizing everything leading up to what I’m detailing here, so all the previous info can be found in this thread which links as well to my original one: https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/4368c9/update_gf_im_supposed_to_visit_in_the_phillipines/I was not planning to make another post here but I’ve been shocked almost at how many messages I still receive from people from here asking if I can update my situation. So this is my update. This is not easy for me to post but I do feel I owe it to the people in this sub.
To cut to the chase most of you were right and I was wrong. I ended up finding out that my “so-called” girlfriend and her “so-called” brother were actually a couple…with a child. When some of you here suggested that to me, I was absolutely blind-sided I could not even fathom that such a thing could take place. How I finally discovered the truth sadly cost me a lot of my time and yes money.Initially due to my suspicions I asked to meet up with her in Manila and not her home town however she was still insistent her brother come along. However I could never quite shake the bad vibes I was getting from him. He had reached out to me on Skype to badger me almost into coming over when it seemed like I had cold feet. That combined with the responses I received here caused me to second guess things. So I told my gf I had a family emergency come up and I would have to post-pone my visit.
What I did instead was contact a local private investigation company in the Philippines to get to the bottom of the truth here. I reached out the agency we agreed on a price and I provided them with all the info I had on her. Pictures she sent me, chat logs, of course the city she lived in. They told me that would be enough. The price they told me was $600 american, I thought that was pricey but I really needed some closure to this as it was negatively affecting my life.I didn’t hear from them for 2 weeks and I was nervous I had been scammed by them actually. Eventually I got an email saying they were close on leads but needed more funds to continue, they provided me some evidence they had located her, a blurry pic they snapped that looked like her. At that point I said fuck it as I was already deep in the shit and sent them the other money they said they needed.
I waiter another week and I finally heard back from them. They provided me evidence that yes she and her “brother” were indeed a couple who had a child and were engaged with others in their community with scamming foreigners.
I was pretty devastated but by that point not totally surprised. The last few months have been an emotional and financial drain and I have been negatively impacted health-wise as well. In the end though the cost of me going over there would have likely been higher.
Anyways I would like to thank those in this sub for leading me in the end to making the right decision. And hopefully other reading this will take this as a warning to things like this. If this can happen to me they can happen to anyone.
