Sacrificial Lambs | 2
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How did Charlie get involved with a scam?
Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Scam Factory early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Charlie paced around outside her house in the cool night air. It was quiet, which was one benefit of living hours away from the bustling city of Manila. The other was the fresh air she got from being surrounded by lush greenery at the base of a mountain. Less pollution. Which didn't really matter at this moment because Charlie was smoking like a chimney.
When I get tense, I smoke. I smoke a lot that time. I was going in and out of the house because I was so tense.
She was tense because she'd screwed up big time. How had she gotten it so wrong? I am the type of person that don't easily trust anyone. She had tried to be so careful. She'd gone with Max to that lunch to learn more about the job, to ask all the questions she could think of to the man offering the gig, this guy Dev. She'd even gone as far as flying out to Thailand to see where Max would be working. She'd met other people from the company. She'd learned that Dev worked directly with the owners. So to Charlie, this man seemed legitimate. And so did the company. Boy, was she wrong. I got scum. I got scum by Dev. Anger coursed through her body. She gripped her phone. She was going to confront Dev.
It was late, but she didn't care. I asked Dad, what's going on? And then he said, what, what's wrong? She couldn't quite bring herself to call him out directly. To say, hey, you scammed us, and now my brother is scamming people all over the world. So she decided to start with every way Dev had lied to them. Because if everything had been a lie, then they never really agreed to this. And Dev had to let him go.
Right? I asked him, where did you send my brother? The job is not the one that you promised.
Dev didn't deny any of this. Yes, the job wasn't the one advertised, and yes, it was a different compound than the one she had visited. But he explained to her that the place she visited was still under construction, and once it was finished, Max would be transferred over. In the meantime, Max was placed in a compound that had already been fully built, about 10 minutes away, and Dev would make sure he was being looked out for. Charlie was starting to get desperate. She pointed out that he'd even lied about the salary. And then I asked him, see, even the salary, you also lied to us. Max's salary was about $300 a month, more than three times less than he'd been promised. And then he said, don't worry about the salary. The company would give Max's reduced pay, and Dev would provide the rest. And then I would enter my own pocket. Charlie didn't know it, but it was like Dev was reading straight from one of Shana Lucas's scripts. He's always saying, no, don't worry.
Don't worry, I'll take care of your brother. Pitch, handle objections, make promises earnestly.
He told me that your brother just need to work for six months. Six months.
Deb would see to it that Max would be able to get out in half the time he was originally contracted for. He said, special treatment.
But my mind saying, you are dealing with a scammer. And you're dealing with not like a typical scammer. This one is higher scammer.
She didn't want a deal. She wanted to get her brother out of this. And then I told him that I want him to send him back.
Just let Max go. He said that if you don't want to continue working, it's easy. Just pay $4,000, I'll send him back. Easy? $4,000 is like a huge amount.
Charlie didn't have anywhere near that kind of money. She sold secondhand clothes for a living. Her bank account only had about $500 in it. It's not like a bank would give her a loan. What would she say? My brother's trapped in a scam factory in Myanmar and I need to pay the people who are holding him? She couldn't ask her parents. They didn't have that kind of money either.
They're not working anymore.
They are just relying on our support. She didn't dare tell her family.
They will just judge me. They will judge my brother. That's the worst thing.
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