Scam victims band together

Scam victims band together

By Dyan Ruiz

FALSE INVESTMENT DEALS

Alleged victims of false investment deals with fellow Filipina, Rowena Villanueva, are banding together to have her charged criminally.

Over ten people who allegedly had business dealings with Villanueva now meet regularly after discovering they were not alone in allegedly having the money given to her for investments disappear.

“I really want to help other people avoid being victimized by her,” said Cecilia Menor, a personal support worker who works with seniors and a mother of two young boys. She hosted a get-together in her home for other alleged victims on Oct. 31. The meetings help ease their emotions because others have the same thoughts about their experiences.

CECILIA MENOR

“After she takes your money, there’s no more communication,” she said. They are reporting Villanueva to get the police “to stop what she’s doing because she’s hurting the community,” she said. “We won’t stop until we find her.”

“It’s been years but I will never forget,” Menor said. She met Villanueva shortly after her second son was born and she got in car accident. Villanueva helped her find a physiotherapist and in other post-accident processing in 2008.

“I never thought she would victimize me after helping me.”

Villanueva allegedly told Menor she was a partner of a clinic called Physical Therapy One in Scarborough at Brimley Road and Highway 401. Villanueva allegedly said they were building another clinic that Menor could be a part of as an investor.

“She called me almost every day, making stories. It takes us hours nagmamakwentahan na ato (we share stories for hours),” she said, when she was staying home with her newborn. Villanueva allegedly said it would be a good time for Menor to invest because of her limited maternity leave budget.

“I did think something might go wrong, but I trust people,” Menor said. In December 2008, Villanueva and Menor allegedly signed a contract for the investment in a physiotherapy clinic, which she showed to The Philippine Reporter.

Menor tried to get her money back from Villanueva in 2009 after Villanueva allegedly gave her cheques that couldn’t be honored. Menor went to Physical Therapy One in April 2009 and they allegedly told her she didn’t have anything to do with the clinic.

She said the last time she saw Villanueva, she allegedly slammed the door on her hand and broke it. Menor said she has managed to get back $14,000 from her $25,000 initial investment with Villlanueva.

“We have big fights with my husband all the time who says ‘See you have the money’ and you just give it away like that,’” Menor said.

She said now she works overnights everyday. With tears in her eyes and a cracking voice, she said, “Sometimes I cry because my children say ‘Mommy I miss you so much. When are you going to sleep with us?’”

“I wish I could see her again and tell her, ‘How can you do this to me?”

Menor said she met another alleged victim of botched contract deals with Villanueva, Abigail Pascual, after she approached Physical Therapy One. The clinic gave Menor contact information of another person who approached them about Villanueva.

ABIGAIL PASCUAL

The 29-year-old IT network specialist met Villanueva under similar circumstances. Pascual got in a car accident in August 2008. Two weeks after, her mother died of cancer. She became close to Villanueva, who helped her after the accident and talked daily. She was “quite compassionate towards me,” Pascual said, and “created a situation where you almost felt compassionate to her too.”

“I felt particularly vulnerable,” she said because of the “devastation of losing a parent,” financial stress of being on her own and injuries from the accident.

Villanueva allegedly “took advantage of the situation,” when she proposed investments in a new clinic. Villanueva allegedly offered a monthly dividend of seven to ten percent to Pascual, if she signed a contract to be an investor in the clinic.

“Alarms didn’t go off in my head,” she said, when she gave Villanueva $90,000 towards the investments and personal loans from her mother’s life insurance and personal savings.

She kept in touch with Villanueva regularly. “Looking back, it seems really stupid. But … with a friend you don’t really hesitate to help out,” she said.

When it became time to cash cheques for dividends in the spring of 2009, Villanueva allegedly gave her excuses why they couldn’t be cashed, such as Villanueva’s brother died; therefore she could not deal with financial issues. They still talked regularly and Pascual sympathized with her.

In August 2009, Pascual took the cheques to the bank and was told there were insufficient funds to cash them. In December 2009, she said, when “I started pressing her for the money, our conversations tapered off. That’s the last I heard of her.”

She connected to other alleged victims. At first they found seven alleged victims of Villanueva’s investments. After their stories were publicized last month in the Toronto Star, they discovered there are about a dozen other alleged victims.

The meetings are to “come together and put a stop to this,” she said. “We want justice. As much as we want our money back, I don’t know how realistic that will be. We just want her off the streets.”

She was hesitant to go to the press initially because of the reactions of “I told you so” and “What were thinking?” Pascual said. “I was already beating myself up over it and I didn’t need to hear someone else kick me while I was down.”

Pascual said she wants to tell Villanueva, “How can you live with yourself? … You took from people who were vulnerable and trusting, who were in desperate situations to help out their families.”

When asked for comment, Villanueva immediately told the reporter things she wanted to hear. “We were planning to call The Philippine Reporter before to take my side,” she said, but now her lawyers are involved.

“I cannot make any comment at this time. We’ll get in touch with you. The sooner the better,” she said. “It’s been like a roller coaster.”

The law firm representing her, Wilson Lewis LLP, said they do not wish to comment.

Initially the police said to the group of alleged victims that they can not help because it was a civil matter, Menor said. She said the Toronto Police have recently agreed to investigate the case through the Financial Crimes Unit, in the Corporate Intake Section. The detective on the case could not be reached.