Con games on the rise

Trust show biz celebrities to make people sit up and listen. When movie stars made the rounds of government offices last year to rouse action against video piracy, regulators and legislators moved in an instant. Authorities raided underground studios and sidewalk stalls almost daily around the country to confiscate bootleg VCDs. In the works are tough new laws not just against pirates but their patrons as well. Infomercials explain on national radio and TV how piracy will soon kill the industry and force screen idols into early retirement. Other industries came alive too. Prodded by patent or franchise holders, lawmen swooped down on fakers or adulterators of canned foods and bottled drinks, shoes and dresses, computers and cigarettes. The reduction by more than half the usual firecracker injuries last New Year was partly due to the campaign against unlicensed wares. Still there’s one born every minute. Counterfeiters and con artists thus breeze from one exposed scam to a new scheme. Cellular communications firms have discovered, for instance, hi-tech gangs that "steal" SIM cards by mere phone calls. A caller identifies himself to the unsuspecting subscriber as an engineer of a cellular service provider and needs to check the mobile line. He instructs the victim to press #09 or #90, a code that forwards the SIM number to the caller. The gang then sells the accessed SIM to overseas callers, leaving the victim with hundred-thousand-peso phone bills.

A hot item in insurance circles is the complaint filed with trade officials and the Securities and Exchange Commission by FortuneCare, the second-largest health maintenance organization. By combo-selling health plans with life insurance of sister-company FortuneLife, FortuneCare has built a clientele of over 400,000, half of them public school teachers. The latter recently discovered that a bankrupt competitor has renamed itself as myFortune Biz Inc., and is selling myFortune health and life plans using the same logo font of the Fortune Group. This, despite myFortune’s incorporation papers with the SEC that limits it to skills training and restrains it from insurance agentry. Worse, FortuneCare says, the new firm sells health plans via multilevel marketing, a scheme that ignores the most basic idea that makes HMOs work - service to members. FortuneCare is coming out with newspaper ads warning the public about its legal suit. Similarly, patent and copyright lawyers take out ads offering rewards to buyers who report to them the display and sale of phonies that drive their clients out of business. Multinationals have taken to hiring private detectives to sniff out fakers and pirates. Mostly early-retired police chiefs from all over the world, the detectives devise ways to penetrate counterfeiting syndicates and their laboratories or factories. They’re effective and expensive. Not all firms can afford such detectives or resort to ads. Some have products that are so easy to duplicate and distribute. Why, there are even fake sweepstakes tickets. Others go by quiet sleuthing. The government-owned Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation is now hot on the trail of a syndicate that has duped barangay officials into parting with hard-earned internal revenue allotments. Name-dropping supposed connections in Malacañang, the gang convinces barangay captains to file applications for P100,000-sports programs for funding by Pagcor. It asks for P40,000-cash up front to work on the quick release of the balance, and disappears. Pagcor does support sports programs, but only through the Philippine Sports Commission. Whatever community projects it funds are solely for livelihood, health or education. Before this, Pagcor also warned the public about con artists who use phone calls for their game. A caller announces that a victim has just won a special Pagcor lottery. To claim the prize (say, P4.5 million), the "winner, for his own safety," must deposit one percent of the amount (P45,000), in a specified bank account. The gang cleans out the account right after the victim deposits, of course. Those con artists don’t always use Pagcor’s name. Sometimes, it’s a department store or a food chain or whatever household brandname. Like the dugo-dugo gang that thrives on fooling housemaids to clean out their employers’ jewelry for hospitalization because of a "terrible accident," they use glib talk on the gullible.

Some of the latest tricks employ outright theft. Two banks recently investigated the Lebanese Loop, an ATM scam. Thieves clip a thin, clear plastic sleeve inside the card slot of the ATM machine. When a victim inserts his card, the machine won’t be able to read the PIN, but will keep asking him to reenter it. All this time, the thieves will be watching what number keys he punches in. The victim will think the machine has swallowed his card, so he walks away to retrieve it later. The thieves move in to get the sleeve, with the card in it. They then key in the PIN and empty the deposits.

To avoid this, bank executives advise clients to run their fingers along the slot before inserting the ATM card. The plastic sleeve would have two tiny prongs that the thieves need to pull it out. Fine, but thieves are always steps ahead. Their newest trick is to put a cardboard clog on the cash slot so it can’t spit out the withdrawal. When the victim leaves, the thives simply pull out the pesky cardboard, followed by the cash.

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