Too good to be true

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

There's a popular Filipino saying that goes "Walang manloko kung walang nagpapaloko", which, loosely translated, means there will be no con artists if there are no willing victims. That's why when the Francswiss scam was recently exposed, many prominent names in Philippine society, which included entertainers, police and military officers, government officials, and private citizens who allegedly "invested" in it were naturally quick to request anonymity after admitting that they had been gullible enough to have been tempted by the offer that their $1000 can earn a spectacular interest rate of 4.5 percent per day.

The reason why these scams, from the simple, yet still effective Bodol-Bodol, to the high tech and upscale Francswiss scheme, continue to victimize people is that many of us allow the lure of easy money to get the better of our senses. These two scams may work differently, but the common denominator is that all the victims handed over their hard-earned possessions voluntarily after being promised abnormally huge returns or commissions for doing nothing but forking over their cash for a short period of time.

Francswiss may be busted, but it almost guaranteed that the same scam will be back a few years down the road, slightly modified, using a different name, run by a different gang, but with the same questionable intentions. In all likelihood, many Filipinos will have forgotten Francswiss, along with its predecessor, Multitel, by then and will allow themselves to be victimized yet again. It is not just greed, but desperation and dire need also have the tendency to severely cloud the judgment when get-rich-quick schemes are involved. With that in mind, we would like to take advantage of the high level of awareness on the topic to remind our readers that when something looks or sounds too good to be true, it most probably is.*