Report Corrupt Tourism Company & Police in Oslob

[bigpearl]

Wise advice from astute members all, heed well and prosper, common sense dictates the course of action in a foreign country on this topic, interesting the OP has not responded? To date.

Cheers, Steve.

[Snowy79]

The best case scenario is a few years down the line after paying lots of money to an attorney you will get your day in court. The police will admit to being corrupt and the tour company will appologise and give you your money back.

The next best scenario is you'll spend a fortune and still not get your day in court but might find you're detained in the mean time on a seperate unrelated charge, where you are the only witness on your side against a few policemen. The rest I'll leave to your imagination. 

[mogo51]

On 11/19/2017 at 8:23 PM, hk blues said:

Fighting the system is tough anywhere, more so here as far as I can tell.

This is sound advice.

[manofthecoldland]

My operational understanding here (mostly for my own peace of mind and survival) is: Once my pisos leave my hand... .I will with 99.5% probability, never see them again. Business transaction, friend, wife.... no matter.

   12 years ago was an exception when, while in Kalibo and transferring to an FX, I had already paid the driver our fares and we were waiting for more passengers before departing eastward (opposite direction from the tourist destination of Boracay that most foreigners are going) and my woman tells me that the driver needs more pisos from us. No explanation was given as to why. The stink of greed and exploitation was in the air. I was pissed and took our luggage from the back door behind the last seat's  open rear door and then told the guy that I had changed my mind and wasn't going to take the trip with him. I demanded my money back forcefully. He could see that I was riled and hyped up and he gave me the 500 or whatever it was that I had earlier given him. We had an audience of old geezers playing checkers with bottle caps, so it was in a  public venue. He gave me my money and we waltzed off, jumping into a nearby cab, who took us to another FX terminal. It ended OK financially, but my composure was riled and it ruined what was until then, a nice trip. In retrospect, now that I am 12 years older and wiser, I would have politely joked him and offered him  a P50 bonus or something so that I wouldn't have to deal with his sh*t and throw a mental snag into my day. Its usually better to offer humor and a little something unless the matter is very serious indeed. We do NOT share the same perspectives in what is right, wrong, correct, incorrect, proper, improper etc., so be very careful in your assumptions in these matters. Few consumers rights here. Its caveat emptor .... buyer beware..IMHO

[Gator]

By now I’m sure you’re playing the “shoulda, coulda, woulda” game. Don’t bother, heed the advice already given, learn from it and consider yourself lucky you didn’t wind up in jail - either on a real or bogus charge. 

If you do want to follow up then take Dave’s advice, wait until you’re safely out of the country and then file a complaint with the Phil’s embassy / tourist board in the USA. But that might wind up getting you blacklisted for being complainer, racist or some other nonsensical reason (nonsensical to us anyhow). 

Pick your battles my friend, but remember - you might win a battle or three, but you’ll likely loose the war. 

[Jack Peterson]

Just now, Gator said:

Pick your battles my friend, but remember - you might win a battle or three, but you’ll likely loose the war. 

[Jollygoodfellow]

On 12/4/2017 at 6:03 PM, manofthecoldland said:

I had already paid the driver our fares and we were waiting for more passengers before departing eastward (opposite direction from the tourist destination of Boracay that most foreigners are going) and my woman tells me that the driver needs more pisos from us. No explanation was given as to why.

My guess is that getting a fare back might be hard. 

[manofthecoldland]

12 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

My guess is that getting a fare back might be hard. 

Normally it probably would have been. But we hadn't left the terminal yet and no service had  been rendered. And I think he knew that my middle aged Capiz (adjoining province and same lang. group) Filipina wife had been asking the other booked passengers, what they had paid for their rides, and had informed me that he was over charging us both the 'foreigner price' for the upcoming ride. Since I was polite, firm and obviously controlling my anger with effort, he refunded my original P500 note, I think that what set my wife off was  when he didn't give much change back from the 500 for our two fares..... so she started asking around about the normal fare. The guy was sly, never told her the fare, and just short-changed her thinking she wouldn't check or maybe not care since as a foreigner, I am obviously a rich guy who doesn't care about or keep track of expenses. Well, .... he got a brief lesson that day. 

[Jollygoodfellow]

4 minutes ago, manofthecoldland said:

Normally it probably would have been. But we hadn't left the terminal yet and no service had  been rendered. And I think he knew that my middle aged Capiz (adjoining province and same lang. group) Filipina wife had been asking the other booked passengers, what they had paid for their rides, and had informed me that he was over charging us both the 'foreigner price' for the upcoming ride. Since I was polite, firm and obviously controlling my anger with effort, he refunded my original P500 note, I think that what set my wife off was  when he didn't give much change back from the 500 for our two fares..... so she started asking around about the normal fare. The guy was sly, never told her the fare, and just short-changed her thinking she wouldn't check or maybe not care since as a foreigner, I am obviously a rich guy who doesn't care about or keep track of expenses. Well, .... he got a brief lesson that day. 

I should have worded my reply different. I meant if he took you one way then might be hard to get another fare to return. 

[Snowy79]

One issue I had on a shark tour was undergoing a wasted journey from which I never got my money back and just bit the bullet. I'd organised a boat to take me to Oslob from Panglao. The boat skipper said he'd leave at 5am and I asked for a 3am start as I knew there was limited tickets. He was adamant 5am was OK and as there was 8 other tourists I was pretty much out voted. On arrival at Oslob surprise surprise there were no tickets left. I could have kicked a stink up but I never fancied the swim back. I lost out on 4,000 peso but had a nice sail in the sun. Life is too short to get stressed out unless it's your last pesos.