PNB Bank Scam?

This is a very interesting story if true. My mother sent this to me in hopes of sending it off to newspapers in the Philippines, but I decided not to because it is difficult to prove these things, especially since it is hearsay for me at least. I told her to send it off to her cousin, who was at one point the president of PNB to see if he could do anything about it. Anyway read on. If true, another sad state of affairs in the Philippines. . .

Forwarded Message:
Subj: FW: Recent Scam Inside a PNB Bank
Date: 12/1/2004 4:08:48 PM Pacific Standard Time

To you guys, especially Ewitt sobrang daming pera, watch out at baka masyadong mag-trust eh mawala lahat ang pera. Sad this happened, I think this is an inside job. Can’t imagine naka uniform sa loob ng bank tapos di nila kilala? This is really a SCAM, sobrang nakakahiya tayong mga PINOY.
Luv ya,
Rosalie Mercado
General Accounting, AV
Fluor Corp.

----Original Message-----
From: Damito, Noemi
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 2:05 PM
To:
Subject: FW: FYI - RECENT SCAM INSIDE A PNB BANK!!!

Hi everyone,
Just want to share this with everyone specially those going home this
Christmas Season to the Philippines. Be extra careful! This happened to my
cousin just lately and we are trying to pass this on to as many Filipinos
as we can. Please continue passing this around. Thanks.
Estee

Here’s the SCAM story.
Just want to share some sad news with all of you that might benefit you, as well as your relatives, friends and anyone you know back home in the Philippines. I will be sending a more detailed email of the incident later that we can all forward around to share with our Filipino community as a WARNING to as many people as possible, but here’s quick summary:

My uncle went home to the Philippines to plan their retirement and he had P550,000.00 (US$10,000.00) to start building their house out there. They have an account in PNB so last week he went in to deposit the money.
He came in to the PNB bank and asked a security guard for help so he can speak directly to a Manager so he can deposit the money. The guard pointed for him to go to an area inside the bank where a personnel would help him. He was approached by a woman wearing the bank uniform and all. So my uncle started dealing with this lady. She was working with my uncle to deposit his money...she sat with him and started doing the transaction. Once in awhile she would leave the desk to go to the back to get a Manager’s signature or talk with someone. Well my uncle dealt with this lady for more than 45 minutes, while she goes back and forth to him and the ‘Manager’s office’.

Within that 45 minutes, she kept having him filled out forms for the deposit and all the process, then took the cash and my uncle’s savings book BUT NEVER RETURNED. When she never came back, my uncle went to the guard and other employees in the bank to ask where this lady is (she even gave a name) and all of them told him that she is not an employee of the bank, and she ran off with his cash just like that! My uncle asked for the Branch Manager and he was told that they couldn’t help him since he was dealing with a person that did not work for their bank.

This lady was allowed to scam my uncle for 45 minutes inside the PNB Bank, wearing their uniform, had access to the back and all of a sudden no one has seen her or know about her. Talk about something ‘fishy’. My uncle confronted the bank to call the police and he was denied the request. Again their reason was because he should not have trusted the lady and they couldn’t do anything about it because its not
their employee. He even asked to play back what the surveillance camera might have captured since the whole thing was going on inside a restricted area inside their bank, but he was told that they do not have a camera. Hmmm, isn’t it weird that a bank as big as PNB does not have a surveillance camera, but other small stores like 7-11 does? So my uncle had to be the one to call the police and file a report. This incident is under investigation right now and PNB supposedly is trying to figure out what happened but its pretty clear that the whole thing was an inside job because they are all covering for one another. Its so easy to get away with such a scam when its in cash and can happen inside PNB.

My family knows Vic Lima (he has his own radio talk-show in the Philippines) and they are doing a coverage on this because there’s other stories about PNB that can also be considered a SCAM.

If you have an account with PNB or know people that have business with them - please WARN them that something like this can happen to them and to be very careful. You can’t even trust their own employees! Its such a shame that things like this still goes on back home. So its no wonder the Philippines is considered one of the most corrupt countries around. Kahiya no?: If anyone knows someone who works for Filipino newspapers here in the USA or in Canada, please let them know so that they can share this news with the local Filipino community, and more people will be aware of this type of scam inside a PNB Bank.