Someone (SIS1) came to our house seeking help to check whether her sister’s (SIS2) getting scammed by her “foreigner boyfriend” (JOWA). I’ve had my suspicion when SIS2 told me before they only talk once a day, because he’s a seaman and that he’s sending her long emails about how he feels about her. I was worried the guy might be a human trafficker or might make her a drug mule, but I thought those were just intrusive thoughts so I held my tongue.

Now what prompted this was JOWA telling SIS2 that he’ll be resigning and putting up an appliance store here in the Philippines. It was followed by receipts of the appliances from Bed Bath & Beyond. SIS2 then received an email from “Aitec Cargo” informing her of an incoming package with a tracking number. My first suspicion was that they might be actually be some drug parcels, but it ended up being some good old freight scam.

Aitec Cargo

My first thought was: why aitecargo.com ? Why not aiteccargo.com? Was it carelessness or a poor attempt at branding?

I was surprised that the website (https://aitecargo.com) was accessible and that the package tracker works. On the other hand, it’s easy to whip up a website. Several elements of the website don’t work, particularly the footer. I was giving it the benefit of the doubt, so I thought it can just be a poorly made website for an obscure company.

Another thing I noted just know is that the reviews is for an altogether different company. Funny.

Searches for Aitec Cargo return nothing but this Facebook post with many commenters mentioning this company and asking whether it’s a scam. But more on that later.

I looked up their address and contact number (+1-201-645-7551, 1502 Red Maple Drive, City Of Commerce, CA 90040), but no results for the phone number and the address could not be found on Google Maps. Remember that this is supposedly a business entity.

“Tracking” the Package

As mentioned above, JOWA sent SIS2 receipts of the appliances from Bed Bath & Beyond. Items were hundreds of pressure cooker, mattresses, fans, etc, all amounting to about $27,000 USD if I remember correctly.

SIS1 and me noted that these receipts didn’t have the date of the transaction. I also looked up Bed Bath & Beyond receipts and those do not look like the receipts that SIS1 showed me. I couldn’t attach the receipts here, because I didn’t ask SIS1 to forward them to me.

We were able to “track” the package with the tracking number, but there were some inconsistencies like the freight amount and weight which further raised our suspicion.

Our Sender

Thanks to the tracking though, I got some (likely fake) information about our “sender”. Info like full name, address, phone number and email.

I looked up the email on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram — NADAH. Looked up his phone number, still nothing. His address, I looked up in Google Maps. The address was an industrial area. Factories only, no residence.

Also, he mentioned to SIS2 that he’s currently away at sea, and he’ll get off at some country and go straight to the Philippines. I wondered, why would the package be in his name? Wouldn’t he ask someone else to ship it?

And now, to the name. The name… is weird. There were two results. One is someone who was born on 1858. LOL. The other is a Facebook account. Gotcha.

The Facebook Account

I was actually surprised to see a Facebook account, especially because SIS2 was only in touch with him by Gmail. It made me check myself. It seemed… regular. Not enough information, but hey, maybe he was just private. The guy in the photo did look like the guy SIS2 showed me before. His About info were actually consistent with what she has told me.

I tried image searching his profile photo and the picture he sent SIS2 to see whether they were just lifted from the internet. Nothing.

Then, when I was about to share the page to SIS2, I saw this handle. It was some Tagalog slang.

His Facebook name was some weird non-Latin characters. So I googled that. I found a comment they made to some horny post. In fucking Tagalog. That sealed the deal for me. It was funny though, I thought “huli sa kalibugan” (caught a scammer by them being horny).

There was also one other Google search result from their name that I skipped earlier thinking it wasn’t relevant, but when I checked, it’s another comment by this account in Tagalog.

The Facebook Post

As mentioned above, looking up the shipping company led to a Facebook post with reports from at least four different women asking about the company within the past month. The post warns of freight scams, and these women were posting screenshots from Aitec Cargo. I didn’t know the authority of the poster to deem these as scam, but these are way too many reports about the same company in a short span of time.

The email from Aitec Cargo had the same format. Before I determined it was a scam, I wasn’t sure if the agent just didn’t know to use paragraphs hehe. They also had the same contact person, and I was wondering why this contact person would be based in the Philippines. I’ve searched the phone numbers even in Gcash but couldn’t trace them (adding here for people’s reference: 639774648723, 63968760340).

I saw some other reports with a screenshot of being able to retrieve a tracking number from the website, but they can no longer be retrieved now! All the more suspicious!

Other Victims

I contacted three women from the same post, and I heard back from one of them (B). Apparently, she’s been contacted by three other women already to confirm whether they’re being scammed. They even confirmed that they were sent photos of the same appliances.

She confirmed that someone was indeed trying to scam her. I showed her a photo of JOWA, but she showed me a photo of another guy. This could be expected though since the other women also had different names for the guy trying to scam them. What’s shocking though is that B said they were able to chat on Skype, though they did start on GMail too.

The modus was indeed asking her to provide Php 16,300 (I saw that it could go up to Php 37,000) for “clearance” of the packages. What added to the “authenticity” was that a foreign number is calling her. It’s more insidious than I thought. She was told the package was already in the Philippines and they even sent her videos showing that the package were fragile. Right from the “Urgency” section of the Social Engineering playbook. Thankfully, B had the presence of mind and didn’t send the money.

Like SIS2, B was asked to look for a warehouse to store the appliances. B was also sent Bed Bath & Beyond receipts. B had a sister in LA who checked with Bed Bath & Beyond. The cashier confirmed with B’s sister that it was a scam when B’s sister showed them the receipt. B didn’t show it to me but she confirmed that the receipts didn’t have a date, just the time, like SIS2’s receipts.

What Now

Even before B reached out, I already told SIS2 that she’s likely being scammed when I saw the Tagalog comments by the account. SIS2 took it calmly and said that she herself had her suspicions from the start. She had been confronting him since before that he might be a scammer and he just gets cross with her. With B’s message, I was more confident that I had the right conclusion.

Others may have deemed it as a scam as soon as they see the reports on the Facebook posts. Maybe after just taking a look at the cargo company website. It’s been a bit difficult for me though, because I would not want to ruin someone’s romance should I be wrong. So I did chase this one as far as I could.

I’ve saved the webpage in the WayBackMachine for future reference. I’ve belatedly looked up the domain’s WHOIS but didn’t get much relevant data. I did report the website to its domain name registrar. I’ve also reported the scammer’s Facebook account.

I originally titled this piece as “Sleuthing the Scammer” (lol), but I didn’t because I didn’t really. I’m not nearly skilled enough to identify the scammer or the organization. My goal is to give more visibility to what happened so that other women may be able to detect whether they’re being scammed by the same modus.