More OFW victims emerges as Emgoldex continues to scam investors

05/19/2015 | 10:36 0 Posted in Business and Finance

05/19/2015 – Manila | At least ninety eight OFWs voiced out their frustrations against the investment company Emgoldex that is operating in Middle East, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Realscam.com and Talkgold.com reported that hundreds of people from other countries are asking for refund, but there is no detailed procedure on how to process a refund.

Emgoldex , an alleged investment company that has no physical office and has been operating for years has already amassed millions of dollars according to realscam.com – a website that monitors online scam programs.

In the Philippines, SEC has already warned people from investing into the company.

The company’s compensation and investment plan is binary. It means an investor cannot earn unless he recruit another members.

There are fourteen other slots to be filled under the first investor before he can exit from the table. In order to get a payout of P180,000, one must recruit two or more people in order to fill the other fourteen slots under him, especially if other people in his down-line has no recruit.

In one table or one group of 15 people, a total of P525,000 is needed in order for the first person to exit with P180,000. This means that the first person makes P145,000 ROI while the other 14 people loses P35,000 each. Emgoldex on the other hand makes P345,000 for every exit.

“Victims are ashamed to reveal how much they lost so they prefer posting their problems on social media and scam forums”, an employee from SEC who refused to identify himself told TPP.

“I was told that I was going to receive gold after I put P35,000 without telling me that I had to recruit. It’s been 6 months and I receive nothing. I don’t know what to do to get my money back”, Jonas Garriel, a factory worker in Taiwan said.

“All six of us in our dormitory invested last September 2014. Until now, our up-line told us that our group is not moving so we asked to get our money back. Since then, our up-line, who already exited the table keep on ignoring us”, Jocelyn Pitogo, another factory worker in Taiwan said.

“We visited the said address in Dubai but there was no one there. The neighboring office told us that they never heard about Emgoldex”, Fermin Carbajal, an engineer working in Dubai said. Carbajal lost more than P70,000 in two accounts.

Cavite balikbayan Celia Paterno said “I just don’t know how to get my money back. It’s been almost a year since I invested”.

“I hope other OFWs stop recruiting people because the more they recruit, more people are losing money. I almost joined last year and thanks God that I gave it two nights of thinking. My best friend who tried to recruit me lost her money because her table hasn’t been moving”, Lucinda from Laguna posted on Realscam.com.

“Other people are happy because they receive payment and alleged gold, but they don’t know that for every smile on their face, another fourteen people below the table are crying. Greed is taking a toll. This Emgoldex is no different from other billion-dollar scams since 2002”, a Talkgold.com member from Romania posted on the forum.

A group of 65 OFWs in Dubai are planning to take legal action but lawyers told them that it will be very difficult because they cannot identify the defendant.

“Bringing this down legally is more painful than we can imagine because we don’t know who the real people behind this scam are,” Muhammad Al Baradai, an Arab lawyer who was asked to represent the groups told local reporters.

“The damage is already done and we can’t do anything about it. The only thing we can do to stop this by telling people not to get involved. Those who already exited the table should have at least a conscience. The money they made is from other people who lost so they should be ashamed of themselves. We cannot blame the program if people keeps supporting it,” Atty. Hadadi, another Arab lawyer said.

“I already requested a refund twice by contacting the website admin but I am getting no response. I am very disappointed. The website keeps giving an error page when you tried to contact them”, Jeremy Chan from Taiwan added.