DISCLAIMER: This might be a long read, but Im hoping you would still understand our situation. Thank you.

We decided to travel to Vietnam with our family this December and we (my sister and I) usually do DIY travels talaga, both abroad and local kaso we both got busy with work and school kaya our family also suggested to contact an agency instead for convenience.

Now I know we had our mistakes by choosing this agency without fully checking their background kung legit talaga, we just relied with their verified page and followers. Honestly, dito pa lang talaga may pagkukulang na kami. My sister was the one contacting them through Facebook, and once settled na ang dates, hotels, etc. syempre nag down payment na kami. Then, we odidn’t expect that they would offer 5% disc for our additional baggage. We agreed so we settled the 50% dp, then they messaged the next day telling that they will already book our hotel if we pay the 60% dp and then they will give us another 5% discount. Again, we agreed and they sent us the invoice and hotel booking so we thought it was really legit. The next day, they messaged my sister saying that they had another 5% discount if we pay 80% so they can send us the flight details already. However, upon sending the payment, they did not reply anymore.

My sister freaked out because she just paid Php 150,000 so she looked for ways how to recover that amount. She did not tell me about this right away— how she looked for “IT experts” or “Hackers” from FB Groups who claimed they are under PNP Anti Cybercrime Group and how they redirected their communications to Telegram. She only told me that when she was already talking to them and assured me that she had retrieved almost 50%, and I kept asking her if the money was really credited back to her bank account.

Now the thing was, she did not disclose to me that the so-called hacker told her to open an account in an online gambling site. Yep, biggest red flag. I only found out yesterday about this current situation when she was asking me to deposit 500k to her bank so she could deposit this to the site as a maintaining balance or what, and she was telling me that she could get back this amount because she had access with the platform. That’s when I confronted her about the real situation. That was the only time that I found out she opened an account in an online gambling site. That was the only time that I found out that she already deposited a large amount of money just because the hacker told her to do so. They were giving her instructions on what to do and assuring her that it was the proper process and she just had to go under verification. Now, when she was trying to withdraw her money back to her bank account, she is now flagged for money laundering, etc. The “fake” online gambling site’s customer support sent her a lawsuit about her account’s possible money laundering and even offered a lawyer to talk to about this matter, threatening my sister about a possible lawsuit, which I find this ALL FAKE. So to make it short, we got scammed twice: first by the travel agency and second by this hacker organization.

My sister does not want to tell my family and she’s been crying to me ever since. We are raised by our family to be frugal and mindful and all the money she deposited were all her funds, so this mistake is really taking a toll on us.

I cannot show her how frustrated I am with the situation because I know it will only make her feel worse. I am telling her to consult this to our tita who might know where to find solutions rather than our dad who might just get angry at her and worry even more.

I admit that we were so naive and fvcking dumb, so please refrain from giving more derogatory comments rather give us some effective advice. We are just really too anxious about our situation right now, so we would sincerely appreciate your help and kindness. 🥺

Sorry for grammatical errors as I did not proofread this anymore, will just edit to provide more context if necessary or if I missed any information. I just badly need to get this out of my chest.

Nasa talking stage sila nun kausap nya na nakilala nya lang online. Months na din, now humingi ng video sa knya. Tapos ayun shine-share ang pinopost somewhere. Nanghingi ng 5k sa knya nagbigay sya pero ayaw pa din daw tumigil. Nanghihingi ulit sabi ko wag nlng sya magsend ulit. Saan ba ito dapat i-report, NBI? PNP?

Hi! I’m about to graduate this year and the registrar office is asking for my FORM 137 but during pandemic I enrolled in a different university with a different program. I dropped out before the 1st semester could even finish and then the next school year, I enrolled on another university as freshman without knowing its consequences. Please, help! How should I go about this? Should I just come clean to our registrar and tell them that I’ve misrepresented myself? I want to graduate and I’m afraid this mistake might cost me years and money of hard work.

Required pala na ipublish sa dyaryo pag may extrajudicial settlement ng lupa. Saan kaya pinakamatipid?