Fake Kidnapping to Ask Parents for a Ransom because of Gambling

[demonica]

I just watch this on our local news where a college student allegedly got kidnapped and the kidnappers were asking for P300,000 or around $4,700

A video was sent to the student’s parent using the alleged kidnapper’s facebook account. On the video, the student’s eyes were covered and he was crying asking for help. It was also stated by the news report that the alleged kidnapper only gave them 2 hours to give them the ransom money so his parents immediately asked the police help. Fortunately the police were able to locate him immediately in a hotel alone. After the police tracked the cctv, they found out that the student went to the hotel alone and there was no kidnapping that happened. Before the student went to the hotel, his last stop was a billiard place. When the police confronted the victim, he revealed that he only did that to ask for money because he got drowned in debt on online lending apps because of gambling. Because of what he did, he got arrested because the police used their time and put effort to finding them but it’s just all fake.

It really fascinates me how can a person do such thing to an extent just because of gambling. He not only wasted the time and effort of the police, but he also lied to his parents big time. He is still young and still has a long future ahead of him yet he is already in such situation. For the parents, it’s so hard to accept how can your child do that to you for money.

Gambling and online lending apps are really a great combo to destroy your life. With OLA, it’s easy to keep borrowing money which can tempt you to gamble more and more, thinking it’s easy to get money. But the more you do it, the more your digging yourself deeper with gambling addiction and debts.

Source:

Code:

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/balitambayan/balita/1001126/college-student-huli-matapos-magpanggap-na-na-kidnap-para-kikilan-ang-mga-magulang/story/
https://web.facebook.com/reel/1505667088253258

[Die_empty]

There have been several cases of young people faking their kidnappings in my country. I have not done a search on the major reason why some of them engage in this shameful activity. By personal observation, gambling might be one of the major reasons behind drug use.

The problem is that he is a teenager and wouldn't be able to work and repay the resources that have been spent to investigate this crime. Forcing his parents to pay for the expenses will be unjust if they have no hand in his addiction. 

These loan apps should be highly regulated. They use the ease of borrowing and advertising to lure people into debt. Addicts should find it difficult to access these loans.

[Botnake]

This kid is still a minor? And to think he already got addicted and ended up borrowing from lending apps, which can be like loan sharks these days, he could really be in a lot of trouble.

What he did probably won’t end up putting him in jail if it was only about trying to scam his own parents, since his parents may still choose to understand and help him. But what worries me more is whether those lending apps are his only debts. If he also borrowed from real loan sharks, then his situation could be much more serious.

[Alvin_talk]

I read the news and I see he is a 19 year old, that makes him an adult and he is mature enough to gamble. The problem here is not gambling, rather it is ADDICTION.

Addiction spams across so many activities including gambling. It can make you do the unthinkable. The funny part is that one can be addicted to a particular activity without even knowing until it's too late. The best thing one can do for himself is to always reflect on their daily activities to watch out for any activity he or she is abusing because addiction will make you lose alot, if not discovered on time.

[Chibit01]

The police did not arrest the guy only because he lied, but because what he did was also a criminal offence: obtaining money by false pretense. Even if the arson was not paid, he still needs to be punished very well. A lot of young people turn their parents to their money box, where any form of trick to collect money from them can easily be used.

These loan apps should be highly regulated. They use the ease of borrowing and advertising to lure people into debt. Addicts should find it difficult to access these loans.

The loan apps are just running their business trying to offer stress-free service to customers which I don't see anything wrong with the approach. They should just keep to the age limit and try to check individual credit score before approving any form of loan for the person.

[Ruttoshi]

Loan apps can put you into a big debt if you don't have any source of paying back your loan because the interest rate is high. It's not about how much you borrow but the compounding interest to service the loan is always outrageous. I wouldn't advice anyone to take a loan from them.

Back to the topic. It's a pity that addicted gamblers can go at any length just to feed their addiction. I wouldn't be surprised that assuming this boy succeeded in getting the money from his parents, he might not pay his debt but use the money to gamble. It's bad to fake your kidnap and put your parents under a lot of pressure.

[Saltysugar99]

This is really sad. If young people are not stopped from gambling addiction, they will have to face more such problems. They can do any kind of criminal act for money. And when a young person becomes addicted to gambling, they cannot control their emotions. They forget to judge what is good or bad. They look for ways to get money quickly. Many times they take loans, put pressure on their family for money, when they lose in gambling, they start betting more aggressively which causes even bigger problems. The student you mentioned never thought that he would do such a thing that would have to cheat his family. But when he had no money to bet, he might not have been able to control himself. The addiction took him to such a level where getting money was his main goal. As a result, he did not think that after doing such a thing, he would be caught by the police. If he had known in advance what kind of negative effects it could have, thought logically and kept his emotions at control, he might have been able to control himself.

[Perfectbaby]

This type of story is no longer something new anymore because they felt that is the only way to extort money from their parents without knowing that they are going extra mile for what they are doing. Of course as a parents I would feels very embarrassed and disappointed knowing too well that my child went ahead plotting for his or her kidnap in other to fund their gambling lifestyle. In fact, it’s actually painful because it is like you never expected something like this and all of the sudden it just happened keeping in a state of dilemma.
This is another thing that gambling addiction is also causing, a child can only devises this strategy when they have gotten addicted to gambling otherwise, I don’t think anyone who that responsible would have to do that to their parents just to extort money from them to fund their gambling lifestyle.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

It really fascinates me how can a person do such thing to an extent just because of gambling. He not only wasted the time and effort of the police, but he also lied to his parents big time. He is still young and still has a long future ahead of him yet he is already in such situation. For the parents, it’s so hard to accept how can your child do that to you for money.

It's not fascinating at all, gambling addicts can go to any length just to satisfy their desires. Debt is common among addicted gamblers. I just wonder how this student is able to concentrate on his academics as an addict.

He still has some sanity in him to attempt exciting from his parents and not going rogue as to start stealing from fellow students or go into proper crime to raise money.

Loan apps are not the problem here, the boy in question has lost control of his gambling desires and since loan apps are easily accessible, he took loans mindlessly to gamble, what a shame to him.

[Sunshine1525]

Imagine how disappointed his parent would be on hearing from the authorities that their child faked his kidnapping, they’ll be so embraced cause it would make them feel that they’ve failed as parents to guide and give him proper upbringing. I've heard stories of fake kidnapping but this is the most silly one, it shows how bad gambling addiction can affect someone.

If i were his mom, I'll leave him with the authorities for some days then bail him later and take him to a correctional center because his case is a serious one, addiction has eaten him so deep that he had to get loans from lending app, going to that extent means his parents can't help but a correctional center.

[goldkingcoiner]

I clicked on your link and got a popup "Gmanetwork wants to store and/or access information on a device". What is that about? Kinda suspicious.

Also was it actually confirmed that the entire kidnapping debacle was because of actual, real gambling debt? Or is that just the excuse their children used to shift the blame in order to not disappoint their parents? sounds like the first excuse a child would come up with when they get caught.

Since I will not access the article by clicking on that shifty, suspicious consent button I might be missing some context.

[Tetu100]

I'm sure similar thing like this has been discussed here. However, you know sometimes after having cases like this everybody will want to put it down on gamble that it cause it, and I'm sick of cases like this because most of all those kids are lyers. Most of them can be womanizing, some of them can be into drugs and some other dirty habits but all will boiled down to gamble when being cut.

If a kids that he is if really he is, can be that deceitful to the extend of scamming his own parents of their hard earned money then who else he cannot do same to. If I were is parents, such person will never step in to my house because his next move is to point a gun at me in disguised of being a gamble addict. Children of nowadays can be very misterious.

[Maslate]

He is a college student, so I also wonder how he was able to borrow from a lending app without a stable source of income. If he was approved, I doubt it was a very huge amount. That’s why I think the bigger issue is not really the debt itself. If he already reached the point of staging a fake kidnapping just to get money from his parents, then his gambling problem may already be very serious.

At that point, it looks less like he is simply trying to pay a loan and more like he is desperate to keep feeding the gambling habit.

[Africolo]

I just watch this on our local news where a college student allegedly got kidnapped and the kidnappers were asking for P300,000 or around $4,700

A video was sent to the student’s parent using the alleged kidnapper’s facebook account. On the video, the student’s eyes were covered and he was crying asking for help. It was also stated by the news report that the alleged kidnapper only gave them 2 hours to give them the ransom money so his parents immediately asked the police help. Fortunately the police were able to locate him immediately in a hotel alone. After the police tracked the cctv, they found out that the student went to the hotel alone and there was no kidnapping that happened. Before the student went to the hotel, his last stop was a billiard place. When the police confronted the victim, he revealed that he only did that to ask for money because he got drowned in debt on online lending apps because of gambling. Because of what he did, he got arrested because the police used their time and put effort to finding them but it’s just all fake.

It really fascinates me how can a person do such thing to an extent just because of gambling. He not only wasted the time and effort of the police, but he also lied to his parents big time. He is still young and still has a long future ahead of him yet he is already in such situation. For the parents, it’s so hard to accept how can your child do that to you for money.

Gambling and online lending apps are really a great combo to destroy your life. With OLA, it’s easy to keep borrowing money which can tempt you to gamble more and more, thinking it’s easy to get money. But the more you do it, the more your digging yourself deeper with gambling addiction and debts.

Source:

Code:

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/balitambayan/balita/1001126/college-student-huli-matapos-magpanggap-na-na-kidnap-para-kikilan-ang-mga-magulang/story/
https://web.facebook.com/reel/1505667088253258

This is the first time I'm coming across a news like that about children faking their own kidnaps just to get money for gambling and this is to show the high level of addiction that has been incured in this children, imagine putting your parents under such pressure just to extort money from them in the name of gambling, I have only come across a boy that used his tuition fees to gamble and he was stranded afterwards and was asking his friend for help which the information got to his parents and they found out he has used it to gamble.

It's not even just the minors that are victims of borrowing money from online apps just to gamble, adults do it too and it's bad especially when you don't have a source of income to repay the loan, because before a child can team up this way it means his addiction to gambling is very strong and needs a therapist to help talk him out.

[KiaKia]

The last similar case like this isn't even about gambling but money extortion from the parents and it bad fired pretty badly, the gang he hired decided to get him cooked as well.

The parents are gone and the child who hired the killers was also killed, but it's not gambling related, there is another where the son stole the original copy of his parents land and use it on gambling.

He lost it and till date the parents don't know, they are very old and I can't burst the bad news out, I don't want to have two dead oldies on my neck, some children are raised properly but they choose to go bad.

[Agbe]

This is not the first of this kind. And as we have discussed here I the forum, gambling addiction can lead to commit serious crimes. Gambling has lead young Men for arm rubbery and stealing. It is better to do hardwork to feed their gambling huge than doing self kidnapped and deceiving family members to collect money. A girl in my neighborhood has done this last few years. She connived  with her boyfriend to kidnapped her and they contact the girl's father to pay the random. And the he paid to free his daughter and when discovered. He forgive them. When the government is bad, the youths in involved in many crimes to survive. Assuming if there young boy is working, he wouldn't thinking do that to play gamble.

[moneystery]

Gambling and online lending apps are really a great combo to destroy your life. With OLA, it’s easy to keep borrowing money which can tempt you to gamble more and more, thinking it’s easy to get money. But the more you do it, the more your digging yourself deeper with gambling addiction and debts.

It's always said that borrowing money just to gamble is really stupid. You'll only make your life worse because you'll keep borrowing just to satisfy your gambling urges, without realizing that your debt is piling up, and in the end, you'll only make stupid decisions, whether it's selling all your stuff, robbing someone, or even worse, committing suicide.
It's far better to avoid debt when you want to gamble. If you think that borrowing money and then gambling it away can double your money, then forget about that idea because everyone who tries that method only ends up in misery.

[Frankolala]

He is a college student, so I also wonder how he was able to borrow from a lending app without a stable source of income. If he was approved, I doubt it was a very huge amount. That’s why I think the bigger issue is not really the debt itself. If he already reached the point of staging a fake kidnapping just to get money from his parents, then his gambling problem may already be very serious.

At that point, it looks less like he is simply trying to pay a loan and more like he is desperate to keep feeding the gambling habit.

The randsom he was was $4700 which a huge amount of money down here in my country since, the dollar value is far better than our local Fiat currency. I don't know what he told the loan app that gave him such a big amount of loan if truly that the requested amount is what he owes the loan app. Of course, I agree with you that, he might only have a little debt to pay and use the rest to feed his addiction. Children do weird things just to forcefully get money out from their parents.

[Orpichukwu]

The handle now is channelling most of the blame to gambling addiction and trying to overlook the main problem here, which is the young adult who even conceived such a thought in his head and gathered up the courage to try to pull it out. Of course, it did not work; according to how he planned it, he could have possibly used that money not to repay loans taken because of gambling but could have used it to do other activities, and when that money is finished, they will plan another one, but as long as his statement has gambling in it, people will say his action is due to his addiction to gambling, which is wrong.

[Die_empty]

The loan apps are just running their business trying to offer stress-free service to customers which I don't see anything wrong with the approach. They should just keep to the age limit and try to check individual credit score before approving any form of loan for the person.

You are right; they are business ventures that want to make profits. Nevertheless, the law should protect vulnerable people. Some of these loan apps can take advantage of the weaknesses of customers and bombard them with loan offers. Maybe they might not be aware of what the borrowers are using the money for. There should be a law requiring lenders to give loans only to people who have the ability to repay them. Gambling deposits that are traced to loan apps should be flagged and investigated. People shouldn't be borrowing to gamble.