Filipina Scammer: Helena Pedroche (claims to be the illegitimate daughter of Ferdinand Marcos)

Looks to me that alot of this has appeared over the last few days. Maybe those that have been scammed have pooled together and just trying to raise awareness?

Curiously the Balita Pinoy site has no colophon so we don't know who writes for it, what its associations with other news organisations are (if any) or even where it is based. It doesn't even have much of a profile as far as Google is concerned and its Alexa score - a measure of site popularity - appears to be too low to register; it does, however, have a Facebook page which pretty much mirrors its own content. Its internet Domain has been registered since 29th June 2006 by a chap named George but, to protect his privacy*, I won't reveal his last name or the Domain's currently registered street address - save to say it is in south-east London; the Domain appears to have been registered in Melbourne, Australia. His site is hosted by a Utah based company which provides both paid-for and free web hosting. Balita Pinoy appears to be entirely legitimate.

The original poster (OP) has done this site no favours whatsoever by adopting the name of his/her nemesis as his/her user name; having a member with the same name as an alleged fraudster does not enhance this site's reputation and may be the cause of embarrassment at a future date. Might I suggest that this person contacts Kuya (who owns British-Filipino) and arranges for a change of user name.

The OP claims to be a victim of an alleged Pedroche/Marcos/Skeggs' airline ticket scam but I wonder how this can be so. The OP invites anyone who has information to

and indeed there is such a Police agency in the UK, so I assume that the OP is UK-based. How then, did he/she learn about cheap flight tickets being offered when the person making the offer is, according to Balita Pinoy, touting these tickets to the Filipino community in California? Is there a web site or a word of mouth recommendation? Without further information, this allegation is, to my mind, a little unconvincing - unlike, for example, the unfortunate Swedish investors who were conned out of over £300,000 in 2002.

Both Mr and Mrs Skeggs complained to the broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, as a consequence of ABS-CBN's two broadcasts about Mrs Skeggs' activities, researched by its European Bureau in London, and broadcast on The Filipino Channel on 13th and 20th September 2009. Ofcom totally dismissed Mrs Skeggs' complaints but upheld one part of Mr Skeggs'. Given that he allegedly signed cheques to repay some of his wife's "loans", on his personal bank account as well as that of the company they jointly ran, and some of those cheques apparently bounced, there's a good chance he may also be involved in her nefarious activities. You can read the Ofcom resolution to both the Skeggs' complaints here http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/enforcement/broadcast-bulletins/obb180/obb180.pdf, page 68 onwards. Interestingly there appears to be no Ofcom complaint in respect of the BBC's investigation and broadcast.





* George's full name and street address are a matter of public record however.

Markham, perhaps you can confirm for me if me using another name is a violation in this forum, and if I broke any cyber law using a particular name as a forum name. I could be wrong but I thought I had the right to pick any forum name as long as it is not offensive and currently not being used by anyone within the forum community. I only suggested UK Fraud agency because this is a UK based forum. If the fraud is held somewhere else, then I would assume that the person would use discretion and report it to his/her local authority. Again, for safety reasons I am not going to reveal my actual location or my identity, and certainly I'm not going to put my life or my family in jeopardy just so I can validate myself in this forum. I don't know if Helena is dangerous and what she is capable of. I already know that she is capable of scamming people. All I'm saying is be careful out there and if you have observed a scam or been victimized by this person, you should report it to authority.

I would have hoped that common sense would tell you that no, you do not "have the right to pick any forum name"; using the name and photograph of a real person is identity theft; which is itself fraudulent if done with the intent to deceive, and I would certainly hope that by now you would have seen enough to realise that using someone else's name has not made you welcome here.

Nobody here has "rights"; we are all the guests of the forum owner. This forum belongs to Kuya.

Pick a neutral pseudonym and you will be welcomed back.

I was more intrigued as to why you would create two accounts anyhow? Why not just identify yourself as Bailta Pinoy in the first instance and explain your case? Were all anonymous as we want to be but opening the two accounts just arouse my suspicions as to your intent.

I think a few explanations are in order to clear up any confusion.

Colophon? That is a rather old word, but I take the point, there is one but it's got hidden away and will look into getting it out in the public domain, apologies.
For those interested, hosting is by Freeservers in Utah as it is the best (and cheapest) platform with the software available to us, as to the domain registration that is via a tie-up with the hosts. Balita Pinoy is based in the UK and Ireland with others involved in Canada, USA, Dubai as well as PHL.

The lack of media coverage on this is bad we will agree, Balta Pinoy, ABS-CBN, the BBC as well as GMA 7 are the only ones to have covered this although I believe a Swedish news outlet have done a piece on it.

As for police involvement, that is extremely frustrating for the victims. In most cases that I have encountered, either because some victims have taken civil action the police are not interested, or when others have gone to the police (in the UK certainly) they are told it is a civil matter.

In the only case to my knowledge the police have taken action (British Transport Police) that was because a) the hotel involved in Leeds was on railway property, and b) their involvement was only in as far as theft of artworks and unpaid hotel bills were involved.

Balita Pinoy have offered to police in the UK all their evidence but have been told as we are not a victim, they are not interested. In Sweden, the police there said it is British matter. As for the US, no comment can be made at the moment.

We do not know who the Original Poster is, and we have not posted as the OP, only as ourselves.

There is one huge problem that has been noticed in this case as well as others of a similar nature, and it is a cultural one. Filipinos in the main do not like putting their heads above the parapet when they are conned; they do not want the fact they have been cheated to become publicly known. If we get the complaints in we will look into it, if we do not know about it, we can't. What we will do (and have in the past as well as in this case) is respect confidentiality where needed.

As to the complaints in the US, they only started coming in from the middle of January as the tickets were sold in Nov/Dec 2013. This matter is still ongoing.

info@balitapinoy.net

Well, that all makes perfect sense, and I think that most of us who post here, whether we are Filipino or British, do indeed understand the cultural issues of "loss of face", which do indeed, as you say, make Pinoys, and indeed other East Asians, particularly vulnerable to confidence tricksters - in a group where nobody will say that they have been conned, the criminal can easily move on to the next victim. Which may perhaps explain two other things - the tendency of Filipinos to assume that something new is likely to be a fake, a fraud or a scam and the tendency of Filipino expatriate communities to contain one or more scam artists amongst their number. It is not that Pinoys are more dishonest; it is that their tendency to trust their fellow-citizens more than foreigners and their reluctance to confess to having been cheated makes it easier for cheats to prey upon them.

I don't have any association with Balita Pinoy; however, I do appreciate their work.

Hold on, though!

I'm pretty sure you (and Oss) found this ZoomInfo page - probably by Googling George's full name plus the word "libel" which is what I did. But did you also come across this Topix page?

The main players in this particular saga are:

1. The late Ms Angelique Blin, former head of Human Resources with BUPA, was an unofficial Immigration and Visa Consultant trading as "Overseas Angels". Originally registered with OISC, she was struck-off following complaints. Although her web site domain is still registered, it is now defunct. She registered two companies with Companies House in London: "Overseas Angels UK Limited" (est July 2009) and "Overseas Angels Limited" (est October 2010) to cover her activities as an "immigration consultant". In both cases she is listed as the sole director and the paid-up capital appears to be just £1. She appears to have used two (accountancy?) firms, one in Enfield, the other in Shepherds Bush, as her registered business addresses. Both companies are now defunct and struck-off.
   
2. Charles Kelly formerly Managing Director of Bison UK. There are two closely associated companies possibly involved here and both have strikingly similar web site designs:
   1. Bison UK t/a "Recruit Nurse", a recruitment agency for the healthcare sector and with an address of Unit 4, Lysander Mews, Lysander Grove, Archway, London N19 3QP. Their web site is here.
      
   2. Bison Management UK, Level 3 OISC registered Immigration Advisors established in 1998 and with an address of Unit 8, Lysander Mews, Lysander Grove, Archway, London N19 3QP. Their web site is here.
3. Finally George and his Balita Pinoy web site.

It would appear that whilst Angelique Blin was rather good at parting her clients from their money, she was not so good at getting them their UK Visas as there do appear to be quite a number of complaints against her. Following complaints, the OISC de-registered her in November 2006 and she ostensibly moved her operation to Guernsey from where she could continue to operate her business without the requirement for OISC registration. But she did have a flashy web site which, thanks to the Wayback Machine, you can see a version of it here (snapshot taken on 31st January 2010).

If you read the posts on the Topix page, you will find evidence of this - you will also find several posts "singing her praises" but as those are all posted from St Peter Port, I'm inclined to discount them on the grounds that they were almost certainly all made by the same person, Angelique Blin or someone acting on her behalf.

I think it's entirely possible that some of the complainants against Ms Blin sought the advice of Charles Kelly's company and it's equally possible that those complainants who were Filipino came to George's attention. Both Kelly's and Blin's companies specialised in the healthcare sector.

Blin was apparently convicted of Visa Fraud charges at Southwark Crown Court in May 2010 and she was due to appear at Guernsey's Royal Court in November of the same year in a bid to have her trial for theft and deception charges dismissed on the grounds of mental incompetence. However she apparently suffered a heart attack and died three weeks before the Guernsey Court appearance.

You can read more about her on this Ultimate Nurse page and about her conviction, at Southwark Crown Court in 2010, on this OISC web page.

The accusations of libel against George and Balita Pinoy all ultimately appear to originate from this one person and since what he has written about her appears to be factually correct, I have to disagree with you. I'd suggest that perhaps George is a bit like our Howerd

As for the OP, they could well be mischief-making and since he/she is apparently unprepared to provide more information about how Mrs Skeggs allegedly scammed him/her, I'm disinclined to take the claim seriously. For all we know, he/she may have read about Mrs Skeggs on Balita Pinoy and is posting a fictitious account to seek attention.

I thank Markham for his defence, and will now attempt to give a report on these matters.

Markham is almost spot on, the only thing wrong is that Charles Kelly was not involved in Balita Pinoy's investigations. I know him, and he is a friend, and was aware of Blin, but only reported what we reported in his Immigration Matters site. However, he along with myself and many others, including the OISC Commissioner Suzanne McCarthy and the OISC lead investigator (now retired) were attacked by Blin.

Blin came to attention when 3 Filipino care workers in Cheshire complained after having paid £1,750 each to Blin for renewal of their working visas. By the time they came to my attention their original visas were nearly expired and they were desperate as the renewals were not happening. Blin first told them she required them to pay more money, and then "sacked" them. I contacted Blin in an attempt to negotiate either return of their money or get their visa work done. This she refused to do.

I then checked Blin out, found she was not a qualified OISC advisor and published the original story. Two things happened in the wake of the original story, Carter Ruck threatened libel proceedings on Blin's behalf and the floodgates of complaints opened. Carter Ruck were told go ahead, and later we were informed by them that "They no longer represent Miss Blin". The complaints came in and never stopped, not only from Filipinos but other Asians as well as Africans.

Gwyneth Dunwoody, the then Labour MP for Crewe & Nantwich also took up the cudgels on behalf of the 3 care workers, and forced a division in an Immigration debate in the House which allowed an automatic renewal of visas for the care workers. It was also because of her intervention (as well as of her office) that Crewe police arrested Blin. This was while she was on bail for the OISC offences. Sadly Mrs Dunwoody died shortly after that debate.

At around the same time, because of complaints to the Guernsey police, they charged her as well with theft and fraud charges.

In the case of the Cheshire charges, the CPS decided it was not in the public interest to proceed as she had been convicted in Southwark and was due to go on trial in Guernsey. Just before the final hearing at Guernsey's Royal Courts to determine if she was competent to stand trial, she died.

This now comes to the reporting; at the request of the OISC only court reports were made until after her conviction. At the request of the Guernsey police the same was done. When she died, this altered the status quo as sub judice rules no longer applied. The Guernsey Press were visited by Blin's family subsequent to her death and they were told an article would be made by them, and that would be it. Balita Pinoy did the same.

These stories were left up for 2 years, during which time several other people complained hoping we could their money back. They were told there was no chance as there were no assets known.

Out of respect to Blin's family who are still living on Guernsey and were in no way involved all stories on Blin were removed from Balita Pinoy's site and database.

It is known that Blin scammed a proven £2 million, and it is suspected possibly more.

I should like to repeat for the final time I do not know the original poster, but if Kuya is correct that IP addresses in California have been used, that ties up with complaints already made.

The thread very much demonstrates how easy it is to jump to premature conclusions.

My thoughts too

It was Google alert

Oh dear. You were doing so well up to this point. But I am afraid to say that that sentence isn't completely true. Whilst you have certainly removed links to posts regarding this person from your site, there remain links to your coverage of her posted on other sites including by your good self. Those links are still active and bring up the relevant pages from within your site's database. An oversight on your part, perhaps?

From the complaints I have seen, I rather think that is quite an accurate figure.

When you sign-up for this site, your IP Address is recorded and the system also records the IP address for every message posted.

Re Markham's comment of stories still being on the database, OUCH. He is of course right as I just found out by Googling her name, 2 came up that were missed. These have now been removed. I thought I had removed all of them, but wasn't as efficient as I should have been.