NS International - 15th flr. Teleperformance bldg. San Miguel ave. Ortigas

It was a busy monday when I received a call from my cellphone.  The person on the other line introduced herself as working for an international company.   The call went something like this:

Hi!  Is this *Chatty Katty*? 
Yes, speaking.
This is *blahblah from blahblah* (she said it too fast for me to catch the words).  We're actually looking for a few people for a leadership and management position.  The position is part time only but you can earn from Php15,000-20,000 and you only have to work for 8-10 hours a week.  Actually you come highly recommended to us so we'd like you to come to an appointment so we can discuss the details further.  There's absolutely no commitments yet before you are able to come and get the full details of the position.  So, can I schedule you for an appointment? 
Sure, when will that be?
Okay, I can schedule you on Friday, there's two times available 3:30pm or 6:30pm, what time would you like to come? 
3:30pm
Okay, I'll give you the address, its 15th floor Teleperformance building, San Miguel avenue, Ortigas.  It's right by SM Megamall.  Can you repeat the address so I can make sure you wrote it down correctly? 
 Okay, 15th floor Teleperformance building, San Miguel avenue, Ortigas.  Then almost as an afterthought I asked, what's the name of your company again?
Oh, its NS International, we're not a call center.  Now just look for Ms.  Bleepbleep and please come in business attire. 
What should I bring?
Since its just a pre-qualification appointment, just bring one ID. 
Okay, thanks.
And Ms. *Chatty Katty* you seem to be a professional person so I hope there will be no cancelling of appointment at the last minute.
Okay, bye!

Alright, knowing what I know now let me tell you, I feel like quite an idiot not questioning most of what she said.  My only defense is that I was pretty busy and I didn't think too much of it at the time.  In any case, at that point, I had fallen hook line and sinker.

On Tuesday, I decided to start going over the details that I had written down for the appointment.  Take note, she mentioned a job, but she did not say it would be for an interview.  Anyway, I went here, to my trusty computer and decided to research the company.  As I would later point out to Ms. Bleepbleep, no one goes to an interview (because that's how I saw it at the time) without a background of the company.

Open, Yahoo! Search keyword NS International Philippines, and I came up with a dozen possibles, including Nutri-System and Nippon Shaft.  So new search, Yahoo! Search keyword 15th flr Teleperformance bldg Ortigas.  Here gentlemen (or women as the case may be) is where it got interesting.

Wouldn't you know it?  Dozens of blogs, forums, comments, all about my appointment and how it was a scam.  Yup, that's what they said, its a SCAM.  Of course, in court, all of what they say would be hearsay, and after reading all the people said about the call I received, I was still a bit hesitant to label them a scam.  So what I did instead was pester the heck out of the person who called me.  (Twenty or so text messages later, I bet she wishes she hadn't called me). 

In that vein, I pursued an alternate route to get to the truth.  I texted her on the pretext of wanting to get more information about the company and to confirm its validity.  The very basis of going to an unknown place just because someone told you to go there is ludicrous, which is the reason I gave for demanding the information out of her.  In the end, it got me nowhere.

It was at that point that a part of me really started to believe all those blogs and comments and notices about that call.  Thankfully it wasn't because they were able to con me into going there, but it was because of the extremes that she went through just to avoid giving me any more information while trying to persuade me to come there.  It was, in a word, ridiculous.  But that, my friends, was only the beginning.

Coming up! Our text conversation...