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Originally Posted by Beestie
One thing I don't get is this. Earlier you indicated that the "wealthy" filipinos could buy some fake docs for 10 grand and easily get off the island. I gathered that your point is that there is no way she or her family could afford that. So, if they are not able to scrape 10k together then why would anyone kidnap her for ransom?
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She COULD have gotten a visa that way. We had an agreement with a lady who runs a "travel agency" that for $5,000 she would guarantee the visa. The way they do it is you pay the "travel agent" and they make out all your papers. When you go to the embassy for your interview, they are expecting you and mark your name and send you to a specific consul who has already been paid off. He grants the papers and you go home to celebrate.
But when I saw the way the lady was doing the papers (showing that my friend owned a non-existent company, etc. to prove she had ties in the Phils.), I cancelled the agreement and we went for a student visa instead. We had all the papers and approvals on our end, but in the time between when we started and the time when she submitted the petition the Philippines had paid off the terrorists in Iraq to rescue one of their citizens to the tune of $6 million (not one penny for schools but millions for extortion) and dropped out of the farsically-named Coalition of the Willing. So to get even, Homeland Security decreed that all visas to leave the Philippines would automatically be rejected and no reason was to be given to the applicant. They were ordered to tell the applicants "you do not qualify" and send them away (but keeping your fees of course). You can apply once a month if you want to spend the money, but they will never tell you why you are being rejected. This was actually put on the government website here.
The embassy used to give detailed explanations to those who got rejected, so they would know what they were not doing correctly in order to qualify, but no longer. Hence the doubling of the bribe needed to pocket that visa. In fact, that same day another relative told my friend that she had been a fool to back out of the "travel agency" deal and that she herself could recommend a consul who approved all the people SHE knew. Still in shock, my friend sat there and was regaled with stories about how the money was laundered to get it to the obliging consul.
It's not that the aunt who adopted her CAN'T pay that bribe. She could, but it is not in her self interest so she won't. It was her plan that my friend should continue to live with herself and her sisters, as a spinster for the rest of her days, waiting on these women hand and foot, being their driver, and nursing them through their final illness. This was "what God intended for you to be", and they consider her very egotistical, ungrateful and selfish to want to leave them. You do not try to reason with these people, they are not even on the same planet that we are.
So what we DID do was actually start a company. We are selling CDs and other fan items for the club we both belong to on the internet. When we have paid off the inventory costs and cleared $2,000, we plan to turn it over to a Filipino lawyer in San Francisco who specializes in resolving "impossible" immigration cases. We broke even on our books last month, and within days "Voldemort" showed up. It seems like no matter which way you turn in that country, there is somebody trying to block your way.
As to who this creep would plan to extort the ransom? Thanks to one of those brain-dead aunts, he thinks his daughter has a rich American benefactor. So if the aunt who adopted her won't give him money, he probably thinks he can get it out of me. It does not have to make sense, that's the way they think over there. US$500 is a FORTUNE to them. And I don't even want to tell you what else he might do with her if he got another offer.