9 Ways To Spot A Scammer (in the Philippines)

Pea breaks down the nine types of Filipina scammers that target foreign men online, prompted by an avalanche of emails from subscribers all asking variations of the same questions about money. She gives a detailed real-world case study of a subscriber she tried to help, profiles each scammer archetype with specific tactics, and delivers a blunt message to the men who keep funding the problem.

What's Covered ​

• The case study that prompted the video: "Steve"

  • A subscriber contacted Pea because he was getting a "funny feeling" about a Filipina he'd been chatting with for almost a year, whom he met on a popular dating site
  • The woman started with small requests (phone load), then gradually convinced him to send $400/month and was pushing for more
  • Her affection had cooled — she was only talking to him every few days
  • Pea investigated: she speaks five Filipino dialects, so she translated all the confusing posts on the woman's Facebook that the man couldn't read (demonstrates examples in Bisaya/Savannah, Ilonggo/Moriah, and Tagalog)
  • Findings: the woman listed herself as single on Facebook, was flirting with multiple other men, was receiving money from several of them, and was "especially proud of her lesbian lover"
  • Despite Pea presenting the evidence, the man refused to accept it — insisted "what they had was special" and that Pea must have made a mistake
  • Pea's blunt assessment: "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think"

• The "don't feed the monkeys" argument

  • Compares scamming to the national park signs that say "don't feed the monkeys" — if you feed them, they get used to it and crowd around grabbing your stuff
  • Throwing money at scammers encourages more of them; the men are "partially to blame"
  • Scamming has become an industry "milking you guys for millions of dollars every year"
  • These scammers give honest Filipinas a bad name and "poison the well" between good foreign men and good Filipina women
  • Pea admits she's known Filipinos who made a comfortable living off scamming "and laugh at how stupid you are"

• The 9 scammer archetypes

  • 1. The Drive-By
    • Asks for money within two minutes of chatting
    • Strategy is volume: talk to 20 guys in 60 minutes, and if just one falls for it, she's winning
    • Easiest to spot and avoid
  • 2. The Milkmaid
    • Drains you slowly with constant small requests — a new phone battery, birth control pills (that she doesn't actually take)
    • No single request is large enough to raise alarm, "but add up the total and you realize you've been ridden hard and hung up wet"
  • 3. The Chain Store
    • Multiple Facebook accounts, multiple personalities, multiple victims
    • She's "Maria the provincial girl" to one guy and "Angela the city girl" to the next
    • Runs a business operation: "like a shady chain of bad fast-food restaurants — she'll serve you whatever you want but you're gonna end up sick and broke"
  • 4. The Hit and Run
    • Always has a medical emergency — "her brother just swallowed a poisonous frog, her mom needs an appendectomy for the third time"
    • Hits you big with each emergency, then waits a while before the next one
  • 5. The Videographer
    • Films her "pathetic surroundings" to pluck your heartstrings — shows typhoon damage to her house while strategically panning past the PS4 and big-screen TV the other guy bought her
    • Knows "a picture is worth a thousand words — or in your case, a thousand bucks"
  • 6. The No-Baller
    • Classic escalation pattern: starts with small requests (phone load, food money) to establish a precedent
    • Gradually ramps up to enormous asks — a new roof for the family house, an expensive operation for dad
    • Banks on the sunk-cost fallacy: you've already invested thousands, so you won't want to lose your "investment"
    • "You're in for a penny, in for a pound — and she's betting your bank account weighs a lot of pounds"
  • 7. The Sugar Baby
    • Openly transactional: she'll be "all yours, body and soul" — texts non-stop, dedicates her Facebook to you
    • In exchange for full financial support including living expenses, clothing, and bar-hopping with her friends
    • "All for only $500 per month with 0% interest and no money down — tax, tag and title not included"
  • 8. The Chameleon
    • Shapeshifts to become whatever you want: religious girl who goes to church every Sunday, open-minded girl sending naked pics, simple provincial girl who climbs coconut trees and eats balut
    • Maintains the act "until she's got one hand on your heart and the other on your wallet"
  • 9. The Scammer Extraordinaire
    • The most dangerous type — smart, patient, and willing to wait years to build a fake relationship
    • May not even ask for money in the beginning
    • "You won't even know what hit you till you realize it's the door hitting you in the butt as she kicks you out of the house you just bought her"
    • Hard to detect, but investigating her past will likely reveal she's done it before

• Pea's advice to foreign men

  • Not every Filipina who asks for money is a scammer — the country is desperately poor, made worse by the economic shutdown
  • But unless you have a verifiable way to confirm your money is going where you think it is, "don't send anyone a single peso until you meet them — and even then you should be very, very careful"
  • Key reminder: "She survived before she met you, and chances are she'll be just fine long after you're gone"

• Comedy ending

  • Pea acts out a scammer character on the phone with a foreigner, asking for money for her mother's medicine ("medicine is very very expensive, you send Western Union, I love you my love"), while simultaneously commanding a team in what sounds like a military/video game battle scenario — yelling about bunkers, RPGs, and DHL deliveries

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