Posted By: puffy
Date: 11/10/98
OK guys I'm going to start with, if you must reply to this post with, "man are you stupid!" , just remember that I'm ugly too and thereby well balanced!
Woke up in Angeles in the Oasis hotel, did my TSM morning calisthenics, had breakfast. Checked with my traveling partner, he was still sacked out or something so I decided to go into town and rent a motorcycle. The Babe at the desk (Robo babe, anybody ever have any of that?), said I could rent a bike near Central, that's where all the jeepneys park, across the street from Margaritaville. I jumped out of my jeepney and started looking around. It was about 10 in the morning and I hadn't had a drink since around 2AM, so if my math is correct my blood alcohol count couldn't have been any higher than .2% so I have no excuse for what happened next.
As I was walking around looking for the place that rented bikes a really friendly clean cut Filipino greeted me like I was a long lost friend. We shook hands and he reminded me that he had given me a cab ride earlier. He asked where I was staying and I told him, he said something about picking me up there or something, whatever -- I really didn't remember him but really didn't give a fuck either. He finished introducing himself, showing me a picture with his family and stated that he was transportation director. I believed that part because he was sharper than your average cabby and he had a manicure!? He asked me what I was looking for ..or something like that, and I told him I wanted to rent a bike. Boy did I contact the right guy!!! He could fix me up with a new one for a very reasonable price. He whistled down one of his drivers (so he led me to believe) and we drove off the main drag to someplace else. As we were riding there he was telling me all the do's and don'ts of Angeles, This guy could fix me up with beautiful college girls for 400p ect. ect. blah blah, at least it wasn't boring. We arrive at our destination and I found it pretty strange that he had taken us to a really nice house, by Angeles city standards this place was a mansion. I asked what was up with that and he replied that everything I saw was for rent, the cars in the driveway, the house, and the villas next to it. He could rent me a villa for 10,000p a month, he said we could have a beer and he would introduce me to a couple of the college girls that were also staying here while he called someone to bring over the new bike.
The place was really nice inside, very well decorated and air conditioned, he introduced the girls gave me the ice cold beer and we were just chilling like a couple of long lost buddies. What's this? Surprise the owner is in!? The way he was announced I assumed he was royalty or something and a rare treat to meet this man. Well turned out the guy was quite a charmer (snake charmer), well cultured Indian man, very affable. We shook as he introduced himself, according to him he owned a lot of property, clubs and whatnot in Angeles. He laughed about the college girls cooing over me and confided in me that he also loved the ladies and had a wife in Angeles as well as in Bangkok. I'm pretty comfortable about now and in no particular hurry to leave. So when he asks if I'm interested in playing a couple of friendly games of poker, because he figures I know the game and apparently by the secretive wink he gives me the cab guy don't know shit. Sure I'll play but first I make sure what he means by friendly, he laughs and says no money. Seemed kinda pointless but, OK lets play. I win the first game of five card draw. He asks if I know the game of seven card stud? "of course"' my turn to shuffle, get ready to deal .
A couple of distractions latter, the girls have now left I offer the cut, he taps
and I proceed to deal, Two down one up, I'm preparing to deal all the cards, no bets
remember but he stops me after the first one up card, he was showing a King, and
bets 100p, I look at my cards I'm holding two Queens down under, and showing a seven,
I see his 100 and raise. I deal the next two cards.
He gets a Queen much to my dismay and I get some insignificant four or something
-- hmmm his bet, I see him with my secret pair. Next round he gets a ten and I get
another seven, Hmmm two pair, not bad. I forget the next round of bets but it was
definitely getting out of hand. Next two down he gets a 9, I get another Queen, I've
got a full house. Well I only had a few hundred dollars worth of pesos on me so it
was becoming obvious that this guy was just going to beat me with his bank. He was
working a straight, mixed suites, well I was fucked, I told him I would check but
he wanted to raise, I showed him my empty wallet and he said I could write an IOU,
He explained that he was rich and having fun and as long as I had a Visa card that
I could get a cash advance from and would sign with my passport number he had no
problem.
Cool I thought even though my spider senses are starting to tingle. Last card down. OK he is showing a King, Queen, ten and a nine, I'm showing a pair of sevens a Queen and a four. He is obviously trying to fill a inside strait, I already have a fucking full boat!!!! We had about $500 each in the pot and he bets $500, I'm getting really edgy and figure he won't loan me the rest and will win by default, much to my surprise he hands me the paper to increase my bet. I study the cards, remind myself that I dealt and shuffled the cards myself and took his bet.
Surprise Surpris Surprise!!!! His down cards were two Kings and a ten giving him the bigger boat Kings over tens. This moment is etched forever into memory it was totally surreal. The guy I was playing suddenly turns hard as I am staring gape mouthed disbelief fumbling with the cards. He claps his hands and in walks the meanest looking Flip I have ever seen! He has a pistol in his waistband and points and shouts at me '"YOU PAY MY BOSS!" I'm escorted out to the fancy jeepney parked out front and another Goon is waiting.
The four of us are on the way to the bank while I'm trying to figure this thing out "then I remember".Between card games, all the while the cabby is talking, about one think or another non stop and the girls are also a pretty good distraction. The cabby produces a deck of cards says something to the girls in Dalog and they leave the room. He tells me that the cards like he was holding, (looked like standard wax coated Bicycle cards were hard to come by in Angeles and If I bring him a couple of decks of these cards on my next trip I could sleep with one of the girlies), the guy I was playing with wanted to see them , I passed them over, the cabby continued to converse, the guy handed the cards back to cabby and looked at me a shrugged as if to say , good deal for you. Well at that time I had no money on the table my guard was down and I just handed myself A COLD DECK.
All the while the cabby was still playing the part of my friend, giving advise like making sure that I got the IOU back and not to tell the police because gambling outside of Casinos is illegal and I would wind up in jail for sure. Well I'm sure my eyes narrowed a little when I asked, "just where the fuck do I know you from?" Well of course he acted very offended and said something in Dalog to the goons in the front seat of the jeepney they all glared at me and I decided not to take it any further. While I now knew the Cabby had set me up, he didn't know that and at least to this point he hadn't been openly hostile to me as his compatriots had.
Got the cash advance walked back out to the car, to pay and waited while the two goons who had apparently staked out the other exits all returned. I paid, got my receipt, and got the fuck out.
$1000!!. Gee wonder what I could do with that in Angeles :-)
I enjoyed the rest of my stay, I guess it coulda been worse and at least I have something to think about how to get back at the cabby! I was wondering if the cabby knew that I knew that would complicate things..hmmm. I never saw him again, he obviously wasn't a transportation director in that area. Well over time my stupidity wore off a little and I let it drop.
When I was in the Taipei airport I thought, if that guy thought I was going to make trouble for him his best bet, (I could figure all kinds of angles for his sorry ass) would be to put some cheap Mary Jane in my bag, VIA the hotel cleaning staff, he knew my name and hotel, and tip off the police at the airport. Once again I figured this out too late I was already in the Taipei airport, only this time I was OK, it would have happened at the PI airport if it were to happen.
What a trip!
Posted By: wingfang
There are plenty of decent honest Filipinos, but of course you won't usually find them in these sorts of places.
Also happened to me in Manila: an apparantly 'normal' 'respectable' girl fronts up to me with story 'please could you help me with jeepney fare, I just had my handbag stolen'. I help her with P50 and invite her to meet for a drink the next day. We meet, dine, go to short time motel, where I find her acting a bit strange, and dosn't even touch her. Drop her off. A few days later police arrive to arrest me at the office on rape charges. Same day through office contacts I manage to get an expensive lawyer who negotiates me out of it at local police station with a payoff to the girl.
Cost: Lawyer US$1800, payoff to girl US$400. Scam was organized by girls male sidekick/boyfriend. They had even called the local press to ensure a bunch of journalists were at the police station to report the rape and of course terrify me into maximum payoff. The lawyer did a pretty good job, even if expensive. The police got a healthy share of the payoff to the girl. Funniest part was when I got pissed at the negotiations dragging on, I said, with a big smile, to one of the police 'come on, lets stop pissing around, just tell me how much you and the girl want'. The guy looked a little surprised, smiled and said 'Oh, so you know how it works here eh!' Rape charges are geat scam material, as nobody will believe, or wants to believe, it didn't happen. Human nature?
Another 'hey friend remember me' case in Manila:- This time the guy has the nerve to call on the phone, the newly installed caucasian head of our big department, in our organization. 'Remember me, I met you at the dinner party the other night, etc. etc.' Wanted to meet him at the local mall just over the road. Some reasonable sounding story I can't exactly remember. The guy almost fell for it but decided to check with our security unit first. Of course they told him almost cetainly a scam. Anyway about six of us troop over to the mall and take strategic vantage points near the meeting place with the guy waiting as bait. But the guy never showed or he saw us arriving, or whatever.
I once made a list of all the scams and ripoffs that happened to me in my time in Manila but I lost it and can't remember most so can't bore you with that. Mostly minor. But I must mention that once the police once stole the plates off my car to make a buck. Sent the company security to retrieve them for P100, so they didn't get much beer for that one. At the port had the auxilliary fan stolen from car I imported. Every car I had got scratched several times. Had the headlight wiper blades ripped off my car 3 times. Only one car stolen though!
I could go on....
Posted By: cool breeze
Date: 11/11/98
My First trip to Angeles about 5 years ago.this reminded me of what not to do anyplace while traveling...
I had just arrived in Angeles and was walking outside the Sunset hotel at the gas station on fields avenue. A guy with a trike came up to me and said he'd show me a great place to rent a motorcycle for cheap....the best deal in town.....after all renting a motorcycle is a blast in Angeles..I still do it every year...anyway..I was a newby in the area I trusted him to give me a ride to the place "for free he said"... after I got in the trike another guy...a friend of his said oh let me hop in and ride along..so we ended up 3 on the trike 2 sqaushed in a side car. I was cramped in the middle and couldnt get out. After I couldnt jump out I began to suspect..Ive been tricked somehow..
After we were on the way down fields avenue towards margaritaville he said let me buy you a beer...I know a place just around the corner here where we could talk and have a cold one...I was getting pissed and told him no thanks I'll just get out here....he kept driving..I was starting to get really mad and was about to start punching this guy out while I was riding but I thought to myself...wait a minute! I better not start anything in this position I could end up with a knife in my gut.......So I said ok one beer and I gotta go....I thought soon as he stops Im outahere...he pulled up at his house sort of close to the big casino not far from the pussy bars...His beautiful wife came out and said very convincingly come on in to have a beer..at this point I should have left...but I went in..he had a really nice place inside...I was quite surprised...TV's Stereos artwork...maybe he'd ripped off a lot of tourists or something..
All of sudden there were about 3 other Philippino dudes there with this deck of cards..they said lets play a hand...just for fun..no money..I said ok...then the next had they bet a few pesos and I won.. it was 7 card stud...the next hand started out the same but the bets were gradually getting harder...after about 4 cards were delt the bet was already up to about 20 US...I didnt have anymore money so i said sorry I gotta fold you win....they said oh I can borrow you more cash..i said no sorry Im broke..It was obvious the trap I was getting into...they said well you must have some credit cards..I said no thanks..the guy was getting pissed and so was I....I was outnumbered so I said shit what have I gotten myself into....I told them listen Im out of money and you win...I got up and walked out the door thinking...I'll be lucky to get out of here without a fight....after all I did owe them 20 more US dollars but luck was on my side..I walked straight out to the gravel street and luckily flaged another trike and got in...they all came running out saying what you doing man...come back here...I said ya right.. Im not an idiot and drove off....they all laughed and went back in the house....
I drove back to fields burning up inside...I wanted to crush these guys atoms apple so bad...but kept my cool...didnt want to get in trouble over there...being 230 pounds, an X-kick boxing champion from 15 years and also a once a crazy Marine gave me some ideas of the damage I could have done to these anal mother fuckers....but I didnt want to spoil my vacation over 20 lousy dollars.....Didn't want to deal with the PI legal system or police...Im glad i kept my cool... this vacation turned out to be excellent...after a few San Miguels some good food at Margaritaville and some of the best pussy in Asia I was in a great mood and enjoyed Angeles immensely...
Word of warning!!
...this sounds like the same guys who are out to get the new Angeles travelers..they
seem to know if your new and dont know the system..the Trike driver who picked me
up outside the house said your lucky to get out of there..he told me that these guys
are constantly picking up tourists and ripping them off..he told me an Aussie he
knew got taken for 1500 US dollars just the week before....he barely had enough cash
to get home...
He said you were lucky to get out of there without losing all your money...I think I was too big for them to bother messing with so they let me go....I surely would have fucked up the first guy in line..but probably would have ended up with a bullet in my head too....If anyone especially a Philippino offers you any kind of a deal or ride just walk off...dont even pay attention..dont even look them in the eye.
I hope we can all start to identify these people.....If anyone knows who they are please post their identity and location ..get there motorcycle license or ?? ....Post it on the board and lets try to find out who they are...maybe we can take some action and set them up....Id love to bust these asholes and make Angeles a better place....lets face it...we dont need any problems when we are having the best vacation a horny male can have...
I think we should find these guys and stop this shit!!