It’s not a secret that there exists an underground market for sim cards and devices that gives cheaper internet to Filipinos hoping to save on monthly recurring fees. The advent of social media has made it easier for black market vendors to target their customers (aka victims). Okay so I’m throwing a little shade on “customers” there. I know that there’s a saying in Philippines. “Walang manloloko kung walang magpapaloko.” Which roughly translates to:

“There will be no scammers if there are no gullible people”.

Although one can argue that fraudsters prey on the weaknesses of customers who just wants affordable internet, it takes two to tango. Customers know the dangers of buying knock-off goods, in this case, highly dubious internet service via sim cards and devices that have been modified. Let’s look at the cases that have been filed and we’ll talk about what goes on in the black market.

I don’t claim to be very knowledgeable about the whole thing, I just was able to meet several people who told me of their experiences.

Corporate Sim and Cheap Phones

Three people are convicted by Globe as of the moment. First of is Winston Rafael Longcob charged with estafa for using fake documents to get high end smartphones. I do believe there was a similar case with people trying to get corporate sim cards along with the high end smartphones. Now I don’t know the exact case with Longcob, but the corporate sims are of value as with the smartphones. Some also call them infinity sim cards.

Corporate/Infinity sim cards supposedly have a larger data allocation as compared to regular prepaid and postpaid sim cards. In fact, some fraudsters claim that the corpo sims have a no data capping service. At 50 mbps and virtually unlimited internet, many Filipinos are tempted to buy them. They use it for personal or for business with some Filipinos abusing the no data capping by inserting the sims into wireless routers for their internet cafes such as Piso net. This actually causes a lot of problems for regular prepaid and postpaid subscribers because the network can get congested because of these abusers.

Another problem is also the way the corpo sim cards are obtained. As written in the ABS CBN article, Longcob used fake documents. This might be true for those corpo/infinity sim cards. Most likely, they are registered to someone else or to a fake person. The usual mode of payment is through money transfers via Cebuana, Palawan and more. Or the fraudster makes the customer take a huge risk of paying directly to the Globe store. After all, you don’t need to present an ID when paying over the counter.

If the corpo/infinity sim is registered to the customer, it is most likely the fraudster manipulated the documents to help the customer pass the background checks of Globe. This isn’t any less illegal by the way.

Aside from the monthly recurring fee, fraudsters actually sell the corpo/infinity sim cards. They can cost up to 5,000 pesos per sim. Just 10 sim cards would make it an easy 50,000 pesos. What also makes this whole thing damaging to both regular customers and Globe is that you can rack up thousands of pesos with the sim card and the buying customer won’t worry about it because it’s not in his/her name. It might be bad though if it was actually registered to an actual person.

As for the smartphones, one can only guess where they end up after they are obtained from Globe.

Longcob is sentenced to 3 years in prison for estafa. This isn’t the first time Globe has charged someone for faking documents. Throughout the years, there have been a number of arrests all with the same end goal, to obtain sim cards and high end phones using fake names.

Broadband Fraud

The next two dealt with home broadband internet service specifically Wimax. Jarryd Nielsen Villaflor and Michael Ken Ledesma from Bacolod sell devices to access the supposedly defunct Wimax system of Globe.

A little bit of background with Wimax, I used to have this and it was 1mbps speed for 995 pesos a month. I started with supposedly unlimited internet, then it was changed to capped 15 gb a month and finally it became capped 3gb a day data allocation. Once I reached my cap, I would still have internet albeit only then 56 kbps to 256 kbps. That’s why Globe kept calling it “unlimited”. Somewhere around 2015 or 2016, the Wimax service ended. I remember arguing with a Globe CSR because I didn’t want to shift to LTE. That time, I was getting 2mbps for some reason. And I wanted to keep that speed. However, I was forced to shift to LTE as Globe ended Wimax and I was barely getting any internet connection.

Back to Ledesma and Villaflor. Last year, the Wimax network was opened again. I guess this was due to the Home Prepaid Wifi system of Globe which I’ve talked extensively in this blog. The two may have been bootlegging old devices. They were caught after an entrapment operation which says Globe is still very serious of going after frauds.

Apparently they were charged with violating the Access Device Law and sentenced to 6 years. This is not the first time Globe has sued an individual for trying to sell tampered devices. There have been multiple arrests made since a Wimax service was introduced by Globe. What makes the devices appealing is how easy they were modified to access the Wimax network and give virtually unlimited internet to customers.

The whole process modifies the MAC address of the device and the fraudster tries to look for a free MAC which could mean a paying subscriber in the vicinity. So technically, the tampered device has a cloned MAC to be able to access the Wimax network. Once Globe finds the cloned MAC, they will attempt to shut down the device and even “brick” it or make it unusable. Still, fraudsters are able to circumvent this and they have been a headache to Globe telecom.

What’s important to note is that most of the arrests were the sellers/fraudsters and not the customers. In a few incidents, the customers themselves turned over these fraudsters after paying at least 3,500 to 5,000 pesos for a tampered modem. They were promised 24/7 unlimited internet only to find out that their services were cut after Globe finds the MAC and then destroys the device.

How fraudsters obtained the Wimax devices borders robbery. During the peak of Wimax, several service outages and eventual phase out led to the disconnection of Wimax devices. A group of people pretending to be Globe contractors would swoop in and say they were there to take back the modems or offer non-existent upgrades. The fraudsters may have old stocks of the Wimax modems or they have found a supplier which is now easy through services like Alibaba.

Possible Black Market Products

The black market also sells modified or open line wireless routers. They are used in conjunction with corpo sim cards to create a virtually unlimited internet service. Globe has tried to stop this by using (abusing?) the Fair Usage Policies by slamming all postpaid accounts and even corpo sim cards with a charge of 2 pesos per 1 mb once you have used your data allocation. You are then charged a maximum of 1,500 pesos on top of your MRF for plans 1,499 and below to as much as 2,500 pesos for plans 1,799 and up. If the abuse continues, Globe then throttles the speed to as low as 256kbps.

This has led to several other “services” that can be considered illegal.

Data refresh - the process of renewing your data allocation so that you can browse again at normal speed. You pay about 500 to almost 1000 pesos for a data refresh that you can actually do by just calling 211 and pleading your case to a customer service representative.
Account removal – Some do get blacklisted if they are unable to pay off their bill especially after getting billed for the 2 pesos / 1 mb scheme. You can avail of this service to have your account “erased” so that you can apply for a new postpaid subscription. I’m not sure how it’s done or if there’s a successful transaction but this already tampers with the records of Globe which can have dire consequences if they find out about it.
Data promos – Allegedly gives you additional data on your broadband account. In reality, these are just volume boosts that you can get via the Globe at Home app which are sold by fraudsters are higher prices. Example would be the LTE broadband, the lowest data you can buy is 20gb for 99 pesos. Fraudsters try to sell that off as 200 pesos for additional 20gb.
Pre-registered sim cards – These are sim cards that are owned by other people presumably for the then no data capping service of Globe. How it’s obtained can vary. However it is illegal to use it, even with the consent of the original owner. Even then, I think it’s highly stupid for someone to sell of their sim card to another person even at the promise that the new owner would pay diligently. If the new owner racks up a ton of bills, the original owner will be charged by Globe. So mostly likely, most of these pre-registered sim cards are obtained illegally.

While the laws in place penalizes the sellers, time will tell when Globe will finally go after those who knowingly buy illegal sim cards and devices to get better internet connection. A little over a year ago, I might have ranted against Globe’s insane prices for data. However now, they’re offering stable speeds with unlimited data. All you have to do is get their current promos to enjoy stable internet service.

And if you are planning to put up and internet cafe/piso net, please do get a business line. It’s a dedicated line that can handle the have bandwidth needs of an internet cafe. That way personal and home users will not be affected.

If you can’t afford any of the current plans, then try the Globe at Home Prepaid Wifi. It’s a compact device that costs only 1,999 pesos and you can avail of the cheapest (as of 2018) data allocation of 15gb at 50 mbps speed for only 599 pesos. It’s good for 30 days and the best part is that further registrations will retain the data and it’s added to the next 30 days. You can read more about it here.

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PS. Feeling ko spokesperson na ng Globe! hahaha No, I just see a need of people to know something about Globe. Hopefully you are all enjoying my blog!

6/17/2018

Globe Catches Fraudsters

Corporate Sim and Cheap Phones

Broadband Fraud

Possible Black Market Products

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