When a woman who was said to be an agent of the SMART Bro asked me PhP1,000.00 as down payment for the subscription I applied, I immediately suspected her of scamming me. I don’t really know if she’s a valid agent for the SMART Bro, but what made me think that she’s just one of those scammers is the way she processed my SMART Bro application.

Last week a woman whose name was Juanita came into my rented apartment in Maasin City and offered me the new 777 promo of the SMART Bro. I am not really familiar with this new promo of the SMART Bro, so I asked here a lot of things about it. I was contented with her answers and the information she provided about the SMART Bro. She then tried to convince me that:

• My place is the best place for a SMART Bro subscriber because according to her, I am just few steps from the SMART Bro tower.
• Then she told me that I am really qualified to subscribe to the SMART Bro. Maybe she’s thinking that I can really afford to pay for the monthly subscription fee of the SMART Bro.
• That my application will be processed if I will pay the down payment of PhP1,000 through her.

When I heard the 3rd one it really made me stand. And immediately asked here if she can give me receipt for the PhP1,000.00 that I would pay her. But then she answered that what she has was just a temporary receipt. According to her, she would bring my application and payment to their office and would return with the SMART Bro official receipt and with the men that would install the SMART Bro receiver.

I was not convinced with her explanation on why should I give her my PhP1,000.00 as down payment without official SMART Bro receipt. I then told her my experience when I applied for the BAYAN DSL last 2004 in Quezon City. …That the agent was just responsible for processing my application. When my application was approved, the BAYAN DSL agent just txt me telling me to pay the application fee at the BAYANTEL office. And then few days after, the BAYAN DSL came and set my connection up. After that… I was already online.

Instead of giving me more explanation about it, she instead showed me the list of the subscribers who subscribed the SMART Bro through her. However, that didn’t convince me but it made me think that she fooled a lot of people. If there’re 200 people paid her of PhP1,000 as application fee, then she got a lot of money.